#m3: sono kuroi hagane

[animebw]

Man, I was on some wild shit when I talked about M3.

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #m3 the dark metal #m3: the dark metal #m3: mortal metal memories #m3: sono kuroi hagane #m3 #that show broke my brain in too many ways to count #remember that girl who's diary was somehow writing the story she existed in? #and it's never explained how or why? #and it turns out it was aliens all along? #and psychic cults? #god what a garbage fire

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: M3: The Dark Metal, Episodes 7-9

In which we dig deeper into the heart of this mess, every character is a fucking asshole, and I examine exactly why this show’s cynicism is so repulsive.

Second Look

It rarely takes a single look for someone to get the full measure of a story. Looking at a piece of fiction at different times, in different environments, even just after a break for a glass of water and some exercise, can lead to drastically different outcomes. That’s why it’s so important for me to keep an open mind while writing for this blog. There’s no telling how my opinion of a show will evolve over the hours and days I spend watching and thinking about it. Something that really amazes me at first might lose its luster as it fails to capitalize on that promise. Something that seems kind of lame might build itself stronger than I ever expected. It’s not until a show’s over that I can be fully confident forming an opinion on how the whole thing works together. So as much as I absolutely fucking despised the first six episodes of M3, I came into this session willing to give it another chance. I put all my preconceptions at the door and gave myself permission to see this show with fresh eyes. Who knows? Maybe with enough distance from my last session, I’d be able to see this show in a new light that changes the way I think about it. So let myself go into these episodes with no expectations, and now that I’ve had a second look, I’ve come to the conclusion that M3... really is kind of terrible, yeah. Turns out, first impressions can be right some of the time. That said, these episodes did give me more to think about in terms of how and why it’s terrible, and with my rage somewhat abated, I feel those aspects are worth discussing in more detail.

The thing is, M3′s badness is the kind of badness that’s so revolting precisely because the show itself isn’t actually all that poorly constructed. Sure, the animation isn’t the best and the designs are kind of ugly, but the overall direction is strong. Scenes flow with natural camera work and editing, the nightmarish design of the Lightless World is pretty cool on its own merits, and I think the soundtrack is genuinely kind of excellent. This isn’t like Shield Hero, where the animation and direction falls completely apart as the show goes on and everything just mushes together into slow-moving slop. It’s not like Fire Force, where shots are so haphazardly thrown together that it’s impossible to get a sense of where anyone is and why. From a production standpoint, this show is basically competent, with effective cinematic storytelling techniques employed on a regular basis. The problem is that all this effective cinematic storytelling is in service of an absolutely atrocious story. The story’s texture is effective in communicating its text, but the actual text so repulsive that it only becomes more agonizing for how well it’s presented. If this were an Arifureta-level disaster, it might be funny watching how incompetently this show flailed about with absolutely nothing working. But because it’s actually capable of getting its point across, it’s like being locked in a room with Ben Shapiro as he sneers at you for hours on end thinking he’s saying something profound when all you want to do is make him shut the fuck up.

You All Suck

And frankly, Ben Shapiro would fit right in with this cast of self-serious assholes. It is astounding to me how unlikable these characters are, how so few of them have a spark of anything that could be considered decent or endearing. And to be fair, the show is well aware of what assholes they are. That’s what I mean about M3 being basically competent; the fact that all its characters are so punchable was exactly the intention. There’s a point where Heito calls out Akashi’s callous dismissal of Emiru, and it very much feels like the show itself calling Akashi out for being such a dickbag. But the fact this admonition is coming from by far the show’s most hateable character suggests that just because we agree with Heito in this moment doesn’t mean we’re supposed to like him. These characters are perceptive enough to call out each other’s assholery, but they need to learn to conquer their own. They’re supposed to be hard-edged and cynical and broken so they can suffer and grow over the course of the show, presumably to become better, more likable people.

And I’m not opposed to a cast of initially unlikable assholes learning how to be good people. But when Every. Single. Person. is this much of a walking shitstain, then I have to ask: why should I care? What’s supposed to make me want to see these people get better? What’s supposed to make me want to root for them, instead of, say, leaving and never dealing with them ever again? None of them are sympathetic enough for me to want to see them get better, because none of them have given me reasons to think they deserve to get better. Consider Kyouko from Sangatsu no Lion: even though we’re shown all the ways her presence is toxic to Rei and given plenty of reason to despise her, we’re also made immediately aware of how vulnerable and broken she is under that harsh exterior. We see the shards of glass and unresolved trauma that turned her into such a monster, and how she’s more dangerous to herself than she is to anyone else. Thus, despite knowing she’s a bad person, part of us still feels sorry for her, and we hope she’ll find away to put her demons to bed for everyone’s sake, including her own. These kinds of characters can be written well; M3 just throws a bunch of assholes on screen and says “Cool, here’s your cast, have fun.” And the fact that the show assumes I’ll have sympathy for them, despite so few of them being worth a single drop, says a lot about how broken its worldview is.

Hidden Agendas

And this brings me back, once again, to the prevailing sense of sexism that pervades this show. The fact of the matter is, cynicism and sexism often go hand in hand when “dark” stories go wrong. If you’re writing what you think is a mature, edgy narrative that deals with Adult Emotions(tm) and you actually have no idea what you’re doing, it’s almost a guarantee that the women are gonna have the worst of it. And thinking about it in more detail, the way M3′s cynicism manifests speaks volumes about the way it treats women. Put simply, this show wants you to get invested in its asshole male characters and not give a shit about its female characters.

To explain what I mean, I present to you the case of Heito the psychpath. In summary: this guy murders his family, escapes from prison by slaughtering a guard, is actively antagonistic and dangerous to his classmates, outright sexually traumatizes and abuses Emiru into self-destructing, gloats about it whatever chance he gets, tries to murder the step-brother of one of the most important scientists behind the project, and leaves enough evidence behind to confirm all these evil deeds. He is the very definition of a walking liability. So how does the show respond to these criminal acts? Is Heito locked back up in prison? Do his classmates turn against him? Does he suffer an ignoble breakdown and pass away in agony? Are any consequences visited upon him at all for actions that should rationally get him sent to the electric chair? Nope. Instead, he’s allowed to roam freely with no supervision. He’s able to run away because nobody put in countermeasures for the very likely possibility of this dangerous man not wanting to play by their rules. After trying to kill Akashi, instead of being locked up, he’s allowed to pilot the second Big Super Robot alongside the guy he just tried to murder. This monstrous, despicable excuse for a human being is elevated to deuteragonist status, made one of the most important characters in the show. And when someone points out, “Hey, maybe this guy’s an asshole and we should just let him die out there,” she’s immediately met with “No, he’s one of us!”

I want you to stop and think about that for a second. Over the course of this show, Heito has done nothing but attack and endanger every single character in his reach. He’s a clearly unstable, violent menace that has irrefutably made the situation worse for everyone involved. But when someone actually tries to point that out? The show shuts that line of thought down by telling the audience directly that he’s Nakama (translator’s note: nakama means friend). It tells you to disbelieve the evidence of your eyes and ears and treat this obvious psychopath who’s caused nothing but harm like he’s a blood brother bound by the sacred bonds of friendship. Now ask yourself the question: why? Why is M3 so insistent on asking you to care about this character on at least a superficial level, to the point it outright ignores everything we’ve seen him do? The answer clearly isn’t based on story logic, because there’s no logic to be found here. Whatever’s going on with Heito is a result of the creators’ attitudes coloring how they wrote this story, however unintentionally.

So think about it. Think how Heito’s allowed to do whatever he wants with no punishment. Think about how he’s allowed to torment Emiru and destroy her life. Think about how he’s rewarded for doing so by getting to side a super-awesome robot that runs on her soul (side note, did we really have to steal the Rei Dummy Plug idea from Eva too?), so he can always be next to her fear just as he wanted. Think about how Emiru is systematically dismantled and turned into a literal prop for this abusive creep’s satisfaction. And now, think about how Emiru herself spend the vast majority of her time alive being slut-shamed by the show and the characters within it. Think about how we’re asked to understand the man who assaulted her far more than we were ever asked to understand her.

I don’t know about you, but to me, that says a lot.

The point is not necessarily that you’re asked to “sympathize” with Heito, because the show still knows he’s an asshole. But you’re asked to understand him. You’re asked to treat him and his struggles as important, while the girl he drove to metaphorical suicide is just a prop in that understanding. Just as you’re asked to treat Akashi’s man-pain as important, how his angst over failing Emiru is given far more explanation than why Emiru was in love with him in the first place. Just as the crazed researcher is the one in charge of the project, driving all the action and chewing the scenery like an impotent manbaby (”No criticism! No criticism!”) while his female assistant can only make horrified expressions in the background. Just as the show lets this same crazy guy test Raika in the Reaper cockpit despite already knowing she’s not compatible just to make her suffer, and the show indulges us in watching her writhe and scream. Just as Sasame’s growing connection to her mysterious other self is entirely framed around her feelings for Akashi and Minashi’s support of her. No matter how cynical or cruel, it’s the male characters in this show that M3 wants you to think about. They’re the ones put on the front lines, driving the plot forward, getting involved in all the important moments. The female characters? They’re just there to make sad expressions in the background, get chewed up and spit out to make the guys’ stories more interesting, or be endlessly shit on by forces outside their control.

That’s the heart of what makes M3 so repulsive. It’s not just that it’s an unfathomably cynical trudge through aggravation. It’s that it cynically asks you to get invested in even its foulest men while encouraging you to think of its women as livestock to be slaughtered for their sake. It lets the guys take all the action while the girls do little but watch trembling from the sidelines until it’s their turn to suffer to make the guys’ stories more interesting. Because when all is said and done, the only thing these kinds of so’called “serious” stories are actually serious about is ugliness and bile. And it deserves to be flayed apart for just how noxious it truly is.

Odds and Ends

-Okay, what the fuck was he trying to say? Akashi abandoned Emiru because... he was obsessed with Kasane? What? Since when?

-It occurs to me we’ve never followed up on Raika and Akashi’s unexpected meeting in the first episode. You’d think her saving him as a civilian would lead to some sort of interesting relationship between them.

-WHY ARE YOU STILL WRITING YOU KNOW HOW DANGEROUS THAT IS ALSO HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK AGAIN

-”That song’s creepy. But for some reason, it calms me down. Can you sing it again?” You know what? That’s a nice moment. I like that moment. Maybe if we can build something off of Akashi learning to process his unresolved feelings towards his brother by piloting his soul, we can find something salvageable in this mess.

God, let this be the longest post I ever write for this show. It doesn’t deserve any more of my time and effort. See you next time!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #m3 #m3 the dark metal #m3: the dark metal #m3: mortal metal memories #m3: sono kuroi hagane

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: M3: The Dark Metal, Episodes 16-18

...

........

.................

what

...WHAT

I think this show may be driving me insane.

I have seen many bad shows in my day. I’ve seen many horrible shows in my day. I have watched anime that have been so painful to sit through I started questioning my life choices halfway through. I have watched anime that fail at even the laxest standards of quality and good taste. But watching M3 crash and burn over and over again, I’ve started to feel myself lose touch with reality. I’ve felt my grip on this show loosen more and more until my experience with it is nothing but a giant red blog of anger and disbelief. Is this show even real? Are we sure it’s not an elaborate prank that wants you to hate it? Or a research experiment to test just how long an audience can sit through the hottest of hot garbage before it breaks them? The more I’ve sat with this show, the more my mental image of it has continued to fracture and distort. It’s like I’m spiraling down a whirlpool of tar-slick black water, my vision blurring and my nausea rising with each successive turn until I’m not even sure which way is up anymore. I don’t think I’ve ever lost my sense of orientation to this extent while watching anime. Things are falling apart. The center cannot hold. Something, somewhere, has to break.

And break it does, as this spiral of insanity reaches its peak with a single unexpected, utterly baffling line:

“We were the ones who created the Lightless World.”

...

No, sorry, go back. Rewind. Play that again. I’m certain I misheard you.

“We were the ones who created the Lightless World.”

...

*ahem*

WHAT.

WHAT. EXCUSE ME. BACK UP. HOLD ON. YOU’RE JOKING. NO. THIS ISN’T REAL. THERE’S NO WAY THIS IS REAL.

WHAT.

Folks, I am broken. I am completely and utterly broken. This twist is so bizarre, so jaw-dropping, so out of nowhere in its disregard for common sense, that I straight-up lost my ability to process what was happening. I just stared slack-jawed at the screen, my mouth hanging open in shock, mouthing words I no longer remembered how to say, half-certain I was about to pass out from sheer mind-numbing confusion. This was actually happening. All this time, the Lightless Realm was the product of an island cult full of telepaths called Linkers who were set upon by IX researches and turned into unwilling guinea pigs by the shitty Dr. Ver wannabe who’s been training our kids in the present. It was born from divine artifacts, the Corpse was some sort of nature spirit brought to life to exact vengeance, and Sasame and Tsumugi were the twin sisters who carried it to the mainland, along with their friend Minashi, to cover the world in darkness to avenge their fallen kinsman. It turns into ET with ESP for a moment, then they met the rest of the kids, and they proceeded to... do fuck-all and have sleepover camp while the world was being corrupted outside. Yes, really. The reason everyone got sucked into the Lightless Realm in the first place is because for some reason, they were perfectly fine forgetting about their parents and all holing up in the same tiny little complex for god knows how long.

I wish I was exaggerating, but that’s literally the explanation we get. THEY JUST ABANDONED THEIR FAMILIES AND HOMES TO HANG OUT WITH THE CULT KIDS FOR NO GODDAMN REASON BECAUSE THAT’S THE ONLY WAY THE PLOT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. It. Is. The. STUPIDEST fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Even when they first meet under the glowing tree thing, their first instinct upon noticing the world start to turn black and ashy all around them is to act like it doesn’t exist and have a meet-cute with one of those balance-ball toys. I... I have no words. I genuinely don’t. If I try to put in language how little sense this entire fucking mess makes, I think my brain would explode.

Stone Cold Stupid

So instead, let me gape with astonishment at how phenomenally this ends up butchering the Main Bad Guy reveal. Yes, Sasame’s sister Tsumugi is the main villain, the girl still leading the Corpse to rip the world apart. And the reason she’s doing it is... because her crush dumped her for her sister. BECAUSE OF COURSE IT FUCKING IS. She got a big jealous ladyboner over Akashi falling for Sasame instead of her, and then everyone ran away because they finally realized they’d been living in Hell for the past few weeks without noticing, and she didn’t follow them because... why? Seriously, what the fuck was stopping her from leaving with the rest of the kids when they ran? She literally had no good reason not to. But instead she stayed behind, and in ten years of self-imposed loneliness she somehow decided it was their fault for leaving her alone instead of her fault for not following them like any sensible person would do. So I guess that’s our bad guy: a Jealous Girlfriend(tm) motivated to destroy the world by a lost childhood crush and a lack of critical thinking skills who blames everyone else for her being dumber than a bag of rocks. Because apparently we’re supposed to think it was a “betrayal” to leave Tsumugi behind, despite her having every chance not to subject herself to this hell. But noooooo, this show is about Serious Things(tm) like people afraid of being left behind, so the plot has to contrive reasons for everyone to get left behind and thus develop trauma no matter how fucking disastrous and nonsensical the logic behind it is. Wonderful. Perfect. Just what I’d fucking expect from this titanic pinnacle of human drama.

Autoimmunity

But you know what the craziest fucking thing is in the midst of all this? We actually got one twist that makes sense: Natsuiri the mad scientist was the bad guy all along! Wow, who would’ve fucking guessed that the obviously unhinged screaming lunatic who constantly physically and sexually assaulted his female test subjects and underlings might not be the most trustworthy guy on the block? Like, Jesus, between this fucking asshole and Heito, every single conflict in this show would’ve been solved if there was a single sentient character somewhere in the cast who could say, “Hey, these guys are obviously dangerous and unstable and they’re making everything fucking worse, maybe we shouldn’t let them have such important positions of power.” But only does nobody fucking point out such an obvious thing, It forces Raika to outright defend them against these accusations for no good reason just so she can be proven wrong when the turn out to be exactly as scummy as they seemed. Seriously, I was just about to cheer when the jock kid decided not to save Natsuiri from the Admonition attack because he was a bastard, but then Raika just had to swoop in and save the guy who’s caused her and her nominal friends nothing but torment. Because everyone in this show is the intellectual equivalent of a fucking sea slug.

But at least there’s one fucking silver lining here: at long fucking last, it’s finally okay for this shithead to die. Turns out, our heroes were working for the bad guy all along, he was the one who genocided the psychics’ island and led to the Lightless Realm being birthed in revenge in the first place, and he has every intention of continuing to use everyone around him as disposable meat to be shoved around and torn apart for his ego-driven research. Which means there are no more excuses not to skewer him like a fucking pig and twist his internal organs until he screams like a bitch. I swear to fucking god, if this cunt-blaster doesn’t get a suitably vengeful demise that lets me relish in his agony, I will be done. I mean, even more astronomically done than I am already. But right now, my voices are right in line with the vengeful spirits of the slaughtered cult rising from the dead in a chorus of “FUCK YOU” against the monster responsible for this whole mess. Fuck you in your fucking ass, freak. I can’t wait to watch you SUFFER.

Odds and Ends

-OH SURE JUST STAND THERE AND GET SKEWERED WHILE THE OTHER GUY RUNS

-Okay, between saving that jerk and that awful confession, Raika’s officially on my shit list. Get bent.

-OH SURE MORE LOVING PANNING SHOTS OVER NAKED SASAME BEING SEXILY BEAT UP ALL THE FUCKING PANNING SHOTS IN THE WORLD

-:Why am I the only one going through all this?” Dunno, but if you play your legs out wider, maybe your vagina will speak to heaven and divine the answer for you.

-WOOOOOOOW YOU REALLY THOUGHT YOU EARNED THAT INSERT SONG DROP

what shall we do with a drunken sailor what shall we do with a drunken sailor what shall we do with a drunken saiLOR EARLY IN THE MOOOOORNING

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #m3 #m3 the dark metal #m3: the dark metal #m3: mortal metal memories #m3: sono kuroi hagane

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: M3: The Dark Metal, Episodes 10-12

In which I pinpoint what this show is trying to be, and how its one genuine success is only dragged down by its endless unforgivable failures.

Lost and Left Behind

At this point, I’ve given M3 a pretty thorough raking over the coals. I’ve slammed it for all its mistakes, the ways it pisses me off, how its story falls into bullshit and agony over and over again with the most cynical, sexist driving animus imaginable. But what I haven’t spent much time discussing is what M3 is trying to be. After all, few shows set out to be utterly miserable experiences that make you want to smash your screen in anger. There’s an attempt to tell a compelling story here, and while intent always ends where execution begins, its still worth taking a look at where this show is coming from. Because on the surface, M3′s narrative didn’t have to be a wash. It’s tackling some interesting ideas and using its trippy sci-fi mechanics to theoretically explore those ideas in more detail. In another universe, perhaps if Okada had fewer additional writers making a mess of things, this show might have been worth something. And this means it’s worth pulling apart the story this show was trying to tell... and why it ultimately doesn’t work.

At heart, M3 is a story about feeling lost and left behind by the people in your life, and the trauma that inflicts upon us. Akashi drifted away from his family after his stint in the Lightless World as a kid; they were too scared of what might have happened to him to give him the same love and affection they used to. Only his brother Aoshi still treated him the same, but even that only made Akashi angrier. He grew to see Aoshi as a source of shame in his life, someone who was always praised for having the courage to “deal with” his helpless little brother. This resentment built up so much that Akashi began wishing his brother would die and follow their parents to the grave. But then, he got his wish: Aoshi died in the Lightless Realm, and now, as we know, he was made into the fuel source of the very machine he once piloted. And suddenly, Akashi was left with unresolved trauma he was never able to process. He spent so long believing there would never be anyone waiting for him that it turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and he started pushing people away on principle. As long as he didn’t get close to anyone, he didn’t have to worry about them hurting him. But as a direct result of disengaging from the world around him, he was too slow in reaching out to help someone who clearly needed help. Emiru’s death is the catalyst that shakes him and forces him to start re-considering the viability of locking himself off from the world. And now that he’s in active communication with his brother’s lingering memories inside the Argent, he’s able to find closure for the hatred he was never able to repent before.

Forgotten Excuses

This is all theoretically compelling character drama, and it leads to episode 10 being easily the show’s best episode yet. Seeing Akashi finally process everything he’s been repressing is the first time he’s felt human. He’s able to emote, to be unsure of himself, to realize all the ways he was falling short and come to terms with how his trauma’s defined him. He realizes that Aoshi was a person just like him, full of hopes and fears and desires that were cut short out in the endless night. He realizes that despite how much he grew to resent his brother, Aoshi was always there waiting for him. And he realizes that if he doesn’t want to be left behind and alone, it’s up to him to reach out and stop running away from people. He has the power to help them just as they help him, so he needs to buck up, swallow his fear, and learn to be okay with standing side by side with his friends. And it climaxes by invoking two powerful bits of symbolism to drive the point home. First, Sasame’s song echoing in Akashi’s mind is a physical manifestation of the voice of his friends leading him out of his solitude, just as it pulls him back into the normal world and out of danger. And as he stares up at the blue sky, he realizes that it’s as ridiculously blue as the sky when Aoshi carried Akashi on his back. Only this time, Akashi has no shame about letting his brother’s spirit carry him out of danger under that brilliant azure sky. This all track emotionally in a way this show just hasn’t before. For the first time in M3′s entire run, I actually gave a shit about what was happening and why.

But there’s a fundamental issue at the heart of this arc: we should have known this shit before. It’s not until we start getting these flashbacks to Akashi’s past in episode 10 that we understand why he’s such an asshole, why he resented his brother so much, why he’s become so closed-off and reclusive. Until then, we just had to take it on faith that there was some reason behind his abominable attitude. Which means until we get that explanation, we’re just watching an unrepentant asshole be mean and miserable for episodes on end, and it cripples any ability I have to sympathize with him. If we’d known at least some of the reasons behind his angst before now, we could’ve started to understand him as a person behind his abrasiveness. But instead, we’re forced to suffer through every miserable second of his unlikable presence without any good reason given why we should care, and by the time it finally gets around to humanizing him, my investment is already spent. I simply don’t give a shit about Akashi anymore. He has made my life too frustrating for me to care about him getting better beyond a surface-level “Thank GOD he’s not as much of a shit now”. All this show had to to was drop in that missing puzzle piece earlier, and it might have made a genuine difference. As is, it’s far too little, far too late, barely managing to pull this show up to the surface so it can stop drowning and catch its breath for a brief moment before it sinks back down.

Fuck You, Show

And no sooner does episode 10′s unexpectedly good turn end than M3 falls right back into old habits. See, now that Akashi’s learned the lesson that he needs to value the relationships he has, it’s time for him to put that knowledge into practice by being there for his friends who are currently struggling. And unfortunately, this manifests in quite possibly one of the worst examples of the Save the Special Girl romance I’ve ever seen. God, I fucking despise how condescending this show is to Sasame. She’s given nothing to do but stand around and make scared faces while Akashi runs around trying to save her. She’s an empty shell of a character who exists for no other reason except to be a prize for Akashi to fight for, a trophy he can claim once he proves he’s learned his lesson like a good boy. But there is no connection there. The interpersonal relationships in this show are so lifeless and perfunctory that watching M3 try to pretend Akashi and Sasame have some magical, beautiful connection honestly makes me want to gag. And you can tell the show itself knows how empty this bond is, because at least half of episode 12 is devoted solely to flashbacks of Sasame and Akashi’s interactions. It knows it doesn’t have a strong emotional bond in place, so it tries to force-feed it down your throat by shoving in every single dull moment they’ve shared, practically screaming at the audience, “See? This is meaningful! You should care about this!” It even outright invents new flashbacks to scenes we didn’t see to try and convince us that Sasame totally had a good relationship with the rest of her classmates, honest! Never mind the fact that we barely ever fucking saw these kids when they weren’t at each other’s throats, they were totally all conveniently getting along every time the camera wasn’t on them! Promise!

Yeah, you want to know how to actually tell this kind of story right? Just watch Charlotte. Seriously, Yu’s arc of learning not to take his relationships for granted and make an active effort to be with the people he cares about succeeds in every way this show fails. Not only do we get to see Yu in all different shades of good and evil throughout his arc, understanding him as a complete human being, his friends and family are all compelling characters in their own right. That show’s entire cast had incredible chemistry together, and you got to see all the ways they made each other’s lives better, happier, and more interesting. So when he finally confesses to Tomori and promises to help her like she’s helped him, it’s a genuinely fantastic moment that’s justified by all the care that’s gone in to making their relationship feel so meaningful. M3 is so fucking charmless and lifeless that even comparing Akashi and Yu’s arc feels like I’m dragging Charlotte’s name through the mud. But don’t worry, in place of lovable chemistry and well-realized character arcs, it’s got scene after scene of Sasame being sexually assaulted to drive home just how much Big Dick Akashi needs to save his precious source of warmth. Because this show just loves taking any fucking excuse to humiliate its female characters in often fanservice-heavy ways. Because that is, was, and always will be the measure of this atrocious fucking garbage fire. Fuck Akashi, fuck that fucking scientist pisshead, fuck the way Sasame’s treated, fuck how all the female characters have been treated, fuck M3: The Dark Metal. Thank you, check please.

Odds and Ends

-”If you won’t say it, don’t imply bits and pieces.” Okay, I like this chick.

-It’s honestly kind of insulting that as bad as this show is, it’s genuinely got some of the best CG mecha action I’ve seen.

-”No matter what’s happened, we can’t let Heito and Emiru die.” Only one half of that statement is true.

-Also, why is the editing so weird suddenly? We’re cutting from one scene to the next without seeing how we got there.

-SERIOUSLY HOW DO THESE DIARY POWERS WORK AND HOW HAS NO ONE FOUND OUT ABOUT THEM

-Um... what? What was any of that? What were those flashbacks supposed to be?

-I feel like retching every time this scientist is on screen. Please tell me he dies miserably.

-Sure, random orgasmic shower fanservice. Why the FUCK not at this point.

God, how do we still have twelve fucking episodes left? I just want it to be over.

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #m3 #m3 the dark metal #m3: the dark metal #m3: mortal metal memories #m3: sono kuroi hagane

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: M3: The Dark Metal, Episodes 22-24

IT’S OVER

Nothing Left

I can’t fucking believe I caved.

“This show suddenly got not shit”? “Now that Natsuiri’s gone it’s finally sorting itself out”? I had no fucking excuse for being so optimistic. I should know better by now. After everything this show has put me through, every godforsaken, wrongheaded, agonizing decision it’s made from start to finish, how could I possibly fucking believe it was suddenly gonna even out? How could I possibly have any ounce of hope left that M3 wasn’t going to dick me over one last time? Am I really so fucking naive that I’d give this show the undeserved benefit of the doubt one last time despite every available piece of evidence screaming for me not to do so? I shouldn’t have buckled for a second. I should have braced myself for the worst and buckled down for one last vomit-inducing spiral down the whirlpool until my lungs finally burst and let me drown. But I gave in. I let myself hope. For just on single, pathetic moment, I thought that at the very least, M3′s ending would be okay.

What a goddamn idiot I was.

Of course this was gonna happen. Of course M3′s ending would plunge right back into the fetid, sexist bowels of this misbegotten disaster and belch out one last tsunami of black bile. Like this show’s misogyny was ever contained to the worst of its offenders. M3 was never broken because of Natsuiri or Heito or any one character. It was broken from the very depths of its core, fractured and misshapen and abominable in every single facet of its being. The bastards of the hour were merely the most obvious symptom; the infection itself was already incurable before the first episode was even over. And in these final episodes, M3 kicks its female cast in the teeth over and over again, one last pathetic burst of spite and spittle before the story mercifully collapses in an exhausted heap. Camera shots linger on Tsugumi’s exposed cleavage until you feel sick watching it. Yet more rape imagery accompanies Minashi violating Tsugumi’s mind. Tsugumi’s pathetic excuse for a villain motivation is once again made horrendously wretched, suggesting that a childhood crush gone wrong is more than enough reason for a girl to become jealous and spiteful enough to destroy the world. And just when you think this story couldn’t treat her any worse, she’s violently wrenched from her position as chief villain and replaced by an out-of-nowhere bad guy turn from Minashi. Because this story hates its female characters so fucking much that not even the main female antagonist is allowed agency over her own trauma without some guy stepping in and literally telling her to step aside and let him take over her role. Just like Mahmu’s potential moment of triumph in standing up to the corpse is robbed from her by thrashing her against the pavement and letting Akashi save her quivering, useless lump og a body once more. Just like Heito is somehow allowed to fucking survive and facilitate Akashi’s growth without any regard for almost driving Emiru to death, showing no signs of having learned his lesson (I literally threw the pencil I was holding when they brought him back). Because apparently, even ONE scene where the girls so more than scream and whimper as their bodies are violated and the guys do all the heavy lifting is too much to fucking ask.

*ahem*

GO. FUCKING. FUCK YOURSELF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FUCK you, show! FUCK you! Fuck your shitty fucking characters! Fuck your toxic, misogynist attitudes towards everything! Fuck your stealing the “We need to connect all humanity” villain plot from Evangelion so shamelessly! Fuck you for still not explaining what the fuck was up with Mahmu’s storytelling somehow predicting the future! Fuck your being so fucking atrocious that I couldn’t even get excited for the giant carnivorous nightmare fortress! Fuck your sympathizing with rapists and abusers while battering every last female character against the wall until she breaks for fun! Fuck your miserable fucking cynicism! Fuck everything you stand for and everyone responsible for your creation! Fuck every last agonizing second I wasted on you! FUCK! THIS! FUCKING! SHOW!

FUCK YOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And good fucking bye.

Odds and Ends

-I should probably mention, if they were trying to build a strong bond between Mahmu and Emiru, they failed miserably. They had all of two antagonistic encounters before she got chewed up.

-”Why the hell didn’t I take Tsugumi with me back then?” WHY DIDN’T SHE GO WITH YOU??? WHAT WAS HER EXCUSE???

-”We’re going to rescue Minashi!” FUCKING WHY

-”Won’t hands do?” Sir, you are no Symphogear, kindly shut the fuck up.

It’s over. It’s actually over. Just one last series reflection, and we’re done. WE’RE ACTUALLY DONE. 

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #m3 #m3 the dark metal #m3: the dark metal #m3: mortal metal memories #m3: sono kuroi hagane

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: M3: The Dark Metal, Episodes 19-21

In which I hash out why this show’s second half is so weird, I pinpoint the difference between a good bastard and a bad bastard, and somehow, somehow, things finally start to improve.

Uno Reverse Card

I have struggled to put my thoughts into words regarding this show’s back half. Hell, I’ve been struggling to put my thoughts into words regarding this entire show. But as the increasingly wild ravings my posts have descended into probably suggest, M3′s second half has been such a weird experience that I don’t even really know how to process it half the time. What was simply fucking abysmal has spiraled out into something a lot more confusing, with so many different trains of thought hitting me from every direction I haven’t always known how to respond. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it, but the show’s overwhelming badness has stymied my efforts time and time again. No matter how hard I work my poor stresses noggin, I just can’t break through the barrier of suck to get at the heart of what’s going on in these final twelve episodes. At least, that was the case last session. But with a little space and a blitz late-night binge session to get the creative juices flowing (as of me typing these words, it’s a few minutes past 3 AM), I’ve circled back around to things with a new perspective. And I think it’s finally helped me see what’s going on: M3′s back half almost feels like it wants to agree with some of my criticism.

See, one of the biggest sources of my anger towards this show, as I’m sure you’re aware by now, is why characters like Heito and Natsuiri are just allowed to be assholes with no consequences. These are clearly unstable individuals who are causing the protagonists nothing but harm, and yet no one just does the sensible thing and relieves them of their considerable positions of influence and power. So much of the problems in this show would be fixed- both the in-universe conflicts and the writing flaws- if someone had just taken a look at these dangerous men and realized they had to be stopped. And in a weird way, it almost feels like the second half agrees with me. We’ve already gotten confirmation that Heito’s attempt to coerce Emiru’s soul into dancing to his tune was misguided and led to nothing but trouble, and only healthy communication between pilot and pod person can lead to a bond strong enough to pilot a super robot (oh hey, it’s like a metaphor for relationships or something). In other words, M3 has canonically acknowledged that Heito was a scumbag who just made things worse. And now it’s done the same thing with Natsuiri, revealing him to be the ultimate asshole whose pride and cruelty led to this whole mess in the first place. The obviously unhinged scientist leading IX’s efforts was, well, obviously unhinged and a danger to everyone involved. And for those crimes, Natsuiri is slaughtered in the most fittingly gruesome manner imaginable. First he starts turning into necrometal, then his soul girlfriend rejects him because he’s a loser creep, then he throws a baby’s tantrum just to make himself seem even more pathetic, and just to cap it all off, he’s swallowed by the souls of all the people he murdered, rejected once more by Mimei joining their chorus of vengeance, and getting ripped limb from fucking limb starting with his head being torn off. Jesus Christ, I cannot describe how hard this made me laugh. After all the atrocities this fucker’s committed, all the ways he’s dragged this show into the muck, the prodigal asshole finally gets his just deserts and exits the show screaming like a bitch because he somehow couldn’t fit his head through a necklace hole. Good. Fucking. RIDDANCE

Wasted Efforts

So that’s why M3′s second half has been such a baffling ride. Despite still being as bad as ever, it felt like the show was also speaking to me through the screen and saying, “Okay, you hate these guys? Boom. They’re done. Kaput. Zilch. They can’t hurt you anymore. We’ll even acknowledge you had a point about what fucking bastards they were. Happy now?” And in retrospect, it was obvious. Of course such obvious assholes would turn out to be, well, assholes. Of cuorse Heito and Natsuiri would be bad guys in the end. They were too despicable to be anything but. But that begs the question: if it was so obvious that they were bad guys, why was it still so infuriating to watch them be bad? It’s not like bad guys being bad and getting away with it can’t be fun. Just look at Dr. Ver from Symphogear, who Natsuiri very much feels like a bargain-bin knockoff of. Dr. Ver is a complete and utter bastard who exists for no other reason than to cackle maniacally and get up to all sorts of evil shit. And he’s fucking amazing. He’s the most entertaining villain in a show that lives on dies on his exact brand cheesy, operatic bombast. It was never frustrating or annoying watching him screw around with the characters we liked, because he was just so much damn fun doing it. So why does Ver get a pass from me, while the jerks from this show inspire so much unholy rage?

The answer is twofold. Answer 1: as much shit as Ver pulled, he never really did anything vile. He dreamed up monsters and dicked over his supposed allies and laughed at their suffering, but he never, like, sexually assaulted Maria or Nastajja. He never subjected them to constant psychological or physical torment that cuts too close to home to be entertainingly monstrous. He was just an egomaniac having fun being an egomaniac, and the characters he dicked over always had enough, well, character not to be doormats in the face of his dicketry. They pushed back, they voiced complaints, they considered breaking ranks, they had understandable reactions to realizing they were being led by a madman.

Which leads me to the second answer: nobody made excuses for Ver. Ver was a danger to everyone in his path, and neither the show nor the characters pretended any different. They all knew what kind of scumbag he was, and they treated him like the dangerous, unstable wild card he was. They didn’t make heartfelt speeches about how he’s “really one of us nakamas!” They didn’t ignore the obviously fucked-up shit he was doing. They didn’t give him free reign to be a dick without at least some sort of intervention and acknowledgement that what he was doing was shitty. Symphogear has (lots and lots of) fun with Ver, but it its reality doesn’t bend over backwards to let him run amok unchallenged. M3, on the other hand? Not only does nobody voice anything more than surface criticism about the way this whiny incel is behaving himself, he’s allowed to assault and degrade and terrify pretty much anyone and everyone he wants to, most often women who’s suffering and sexualization is trotted out for our sick voyeuristic pleasure. The show makes excuse after excuse for him to be an asshole and get away with it, all so it can keep traumatizing its female characters and shoving their suffering in our face. Even in his dying moments, it gives him Sad Backstory Flashbacks to let us know that his entire history of abuse and assholery is probably because Mommy didn’t even love him enough. Because in M3, even the sexism and abusiveness of the male characters is somehow a woman’s fault. And no amount of acknowledging “Yeah, this guy’s a jerk” after the fact is enough to wash away that foul stench.

But a funny thing happened at this point. Because once Natsuiri was officially splattered across the pavement, we were left with... none of the characters who I’ve had this problem with. Heito’s dead, Natsuiri’s dead, Akashi’s grown up enough to be at least reasonably respectful towards other people. We don’t have any characters left whom the show’s let fuck around beyond all logic and make everything worse. Nobody’s left to keep dragging this dead horse through the mud. One of the worst things about this show is now gone.

And in its absence, by some impossible miracle, M3 is starting to... work.

Redemption Arc: Begin

Yeah, turns out if you get rid of the characters who’s express purpose is to make the show worse, the show is no longer as bad. No, it’s not just not bad; it’s functional! It makes sense! We get to see Akashi keep processing his brother’s loss and how similar he’s come to feel about going into the Lightless World, Kasane and her general friend get a decent scene in the bar where they just chat about their shared trauma and open up emotionally, there’s understandable stakes set for the final battle with the powers and players and emotional contexts all in tow, Iwato has an understandable emotional breakdown as he realizes he’s not brave enough to risk going full LIM to give the gang a better fighting chance, Kasane gets possibly the show’s most emotional line as she begs Aoshi’s spirit to ”Do what I tell you at least once!” as he risks leaving her again, this time for good, and Jesus Fucking Christ on a hot-dog hopscotch court, it all works! For the first time in this show’s entire history, M3 is managing to pull off consistently solid character work and plot progression without shooting itself in the foot every other second. We even find out Natsuiri’s been hiding yet more solutions to long-standing problems in a locked server, and now we get to use this jerk’s data to save the day instead of keeping it sealed away forever! Seriously, it’s like a metaphor for the show’s entire post-Natsuiri upswing! Now that this bastard’s out of the way, everyone and everything is able to stop fucking around and get shit done! I’d... I’d forgotten what this feels like!

It’s... beautiful.

*silently weeps*

Okay, I don’t want to oversell this, because it’s not like this show suddenly fixed everything else that was wrong with it. The characters are all still pretty bland and lifeless, the Iwato/Raika romance can suck a fat one, and I’m just now realizing how little of the character establishment we got in the first couple episodes led to anything. Seriously, Raika being an ace pilot, Akashi being friends/rivals with Iwato, Mahmu’s vengeful streak... all those potentially interesting dynamics were dropped pretty much right away. It still baffles me how astronomically this show managed to fuck that up. But against all fucking odds, I found myself for the first time not hating M3. Imagine if this show was bring this to the table from the very beginning. Imagine if it never had Natsuiri or Heito or Asshole Akashi or anyone given unrealistic free reign to be a sexist asshole with no consequences. I don’t think it would’ve been any kind of masterpiece, but at the very least, there’s a version of M3 out there that might have genuinely worked on its own merits. Maybe I could’ve been able to at least appreciate what it was doing all the way through, instead of just breathing a sigh of relief that it’s no longer outright torturing me. Or maybe it would’ve still sucked. I don’t know.

All I know is that for the first time since I started watching this show, I no longer feel like I’m drowning.

And my god, folks, it feels fucking good to breathe again.

Odds and Ends.

-”Mahmu, it’s all up to you!” Five seconds later: Mahmu eats shit and stops being relevant for the rest of the episode. Good job.

-”Phone numbers for candy companies?” “I tried that too.” sdlfksdf

-See, Minashi, your problem is that you somehow haven’t watched Evangelion. Go fix that, it’s a damn good show.

-God, it just hit me that she was a student. She was a college student who became the girlfriend of an adult researcher. For fuck’s sake.

Just one more session. Just three more episodes and this show can kiss my ass goodbye. See you next time for the grand finale of M3!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #m3 #m3 the dark metal #m3: the dark metal #m3: mortal metal memories #m3: sono kuroi hagane

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: M3: The Dark Metal, Episodes 13-15

In which, at long last, this show finally becomes bad enough to be entertaining.

Ow, The Edge

At this point, I think it’s safe to say I’ve officially given up on M3. From start to finish, its first twelve episodes were a thoroughly miserable experience, exemplifying all the worst writing techniques I’ve seen in anime fused together in an unholy amalgamation of suck. And now, we don’t even have the decency of the genuinely excellent first OP to help us weather the storm. So imagine my surprise to be rounding the halfway point of this show and realize that I’m... well, interested isn’t the word. God, interested is so not the word. But I can’t help but admit to a kind of... perverse fascination, let’s say. This show has pissed me off so much as this point that I genuinely don’t know if it’s even capable of pissing me off anymore. But god help me, I almost want to see it try. I almost want to see just how proudly, ignorantly, ridiculously bad this show can get. I don’t want to just sink into numbness and spend the second half feeling the life drain from me, I want to revel in this show’s awfulness. Because at this point, that’s the only survival mechanism I have left. M3 has taken so much from me already, but I refuse to let it take away my capacity to feel.

And already, the second half’s giving me plenty of garbage to chew over. And all of it centers around Akashi’s reaction to Sasame’s death and Pod-ification. Which, first off all, how fucking shitty is it that Sasame doesn’t even get to die on screen? We aren’t even allowed the dignity of watching her make that fatal choice except in flashbacks after the fact, that’s how cheaply this show treats her. Not to mention how fucking ridiculous it is that as we keep stacking up new Super Robots, it has taken us until episode fourteen for one of the female characters to be one of the Super Pilots piloting them. For fuck’s sake, we got three shitty, boring dudes in these super important roles before Mahmu’s given a chance to stand among them. What about Raika, the skilled test pilot who we saw kicking ass in a robot back in the first episode? Shouldn’t she, at least, have enough experience to be part of the first wave of LIM special ops? But nope, clearly the dangerous rapist psychopath deserved to pilot the soul of the girl he psychologically bludgeoned to death was clearly the more logical option. And the shitty scientist character has the gall to act like Emiru’s soul rejecting him was some big surprise. Yeah, who would’ve thought a rapist and his victim might not exactly get along. I swear, this show is so fucking callous about the feelings of its female characters it’s pathetic.

So Much Lol

But forget that shit, we’re here to talk about Akashi. Because following Sasame’s death, Akashi descends into, quite frankly, the most entertainingly over-the-top bout of impotent man rage I think I’ve ever seen. Jesus Christ, that was actually entertaining. Watching this smarky, jaded jackass completely lose his shit because his precious waifu died actually put a smile on my face. He just utterly falls apart screaming and crying like the insecure, needy incel manchild he is, and it’s great. Just listen to him wait about how he’s “had enough of being protected” as he smacks demon crows out of the sky, because the thought of being protected by the helpless damsel he was dead-set on saving himself makes him lose his goddamn mind. He’s such a wreck that Fake Sasame is able to completely fool him by acting out his own perfect little redemption fantasy. Here before him is a Sasame in skimpy clothes who dotes on him endlessly, does the cliche “sexily rip my clothing to make a bandage for you” deal, sticks her ass out when she climbs on the carousel, falls in such a way that he lands on top of her with her torn dress splayed out and revealing her goodies to the world, and he just fucking falls for it hook, line, and sinker. It’s so shamelessly shitty that it’s honestly kind of hilarious.

But even that’s nothing compared to his dream about Minashi cucking him. Yes, this really happens. He has a melodramatic sadboi dream about Minashi groping Sasame and kissing her in front of him with epic tragedy music playing in the background as they both say it’s for his own good, and it’s the funniest fucking thing ever. I don’t even know if M3 is somehow intentionally holding Akashi’s incel brain up for ridicule or if it’s just this lacking in self-awareness about who its protagonist really is. But one thing’s for sure: this show finally got so abysmal it managed to make me laugh from the sheer spectacle of it all. And I can’t see that as anything other than an improvement.

Odds and Ends

-It is uncanny how similar to Guilty Crown this metallic menace feels. I should’ve known right away that wasn’t a good sign, tbh.

-No, fuck you, you don’t get to make the scientist funny after all the shit he pulled. Fuck you.

-Okay, that’s just odd. If the fact that they were spirited away was supposed to be secret, why just casually reveal it then? If it was okay to talk about, why did no one ever tell them?

-Seriously, are we ever gonna fucking find out how Mahmu’s writing stories into reality? This can’t just be a poetic plot device for reconciliation.

-...okay, I don’t know why we’re chilling in the Eva Finale Theater Pocket Dimension, this time with Big Glowy Tree. But it’s probably stupid.

-”This wench was with the Corpse.” EXCUSE THE FUCK SUBTITLES I DON’T THINK THAT’S THE CONTEXT YOU WANT

-BITCH THAT WAS FROM THE FIRST OP YOU CAN’T FLASHBACK TO A SCENE IN THE OP THAT NEVER HAPPENED IN THE SHOW WHAT

God help me, this show is wretched. Oh well, see you next time!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #m3 #m3 the dark metal #m3: the dark metal #m3: mortal metal memories #m3: sono kuroi hagane

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: M3: The Dark Metal, Episodes 4-6

Do not watch this show. Please, for the love of god, do not watch this show.

FUCKING WHAT

It was at the end of episode 5 that I had to stop watching M3 and look up who was on the staff list. I just couldn’t spend another moment not knowing who was responsible for this fucking travesty. Frankly, I had no idea who might have been the driving force behind this show’s creation. I just knew that someone had to pay.

But let me tell you, I was not fucking prepared to find out who wrote M3′s script, a grand total of five people including:

-Hajime Kamoshida, the original creator of Bunny Girl Senpai and Pet Girl of Sakurasou.

-Shinsuke Oonishi, who wrote a large chunk of the script for Zetsuen no Tempest, aka the current worst anime I’ve ever seen.

-Keigo Koyanagi, who not only was also responsible for Zetsuen no Tempest’s script, but additionally worked as the series composer for fucking SHIELD HERO.

And as if all that wasn’t enough “what the fuck” for you, here’s the absolute kicker: Guess who did the fucking series composition.

Go on, guess.

You got your guess?

Okay. Here’s the answer.

*ahem*

THE SERIES COMPOSER WAS MARI OKADA.

No, I am not shitting you. The cherry on top of this repulsive shit sundae is that M3′s creator was none other than Mari Goddamn Motherfucking Okada herself. Folks, I just about lost my ever-loving shit. I was cackling with manic glee as I peeled back more and more layers of this rotting onion. Two of the writers responsible for my least favorite anime ever? The guy behind one of 2019′s most repulsive breakout hits? MARI FUCKING OKADA?!?! There is not a single universe in which this combination makes sense. And yet, in a twisted, fucked-up way, it also kind of makes perfect sense. Wasn’t I literally just saying how much this show felt like the attitudes of the worst anime I’ve seen, including Zetsuen no Tempest? Doesn’t it make perfect sense how appallingly sexist the whole affair is now that we know the Shield Hero guy is behind it? Heck, Oonishi was also a scriptwriter on the godawful second season of Aldnoah.Zero, and here he is on yet another subpar CG mecha anime. Even Mari Okada’s influence isn’t impossible to spot; once I found out that the teens all share a psychic bond from their time in the Lightless Realm that gives them access to each other’s thoughts and emotions, whether they like it or not, the immediate connection I made was, “Wow, this feels like a bargain bin Kiznaiver.” WELL, NO FUCKING SURPRISE, THEN. Considering M3 came out two years before Kiznaiver, it’s like Okada hated how this version of that idea turned out so badly, she decided to try it all over again without four men of questionable writing caliber fucking everything up. I am fucking fascinated by by this connection. If I had a chance, I would love to get Okada behind closed doors and ask her just what the fuck happened behind the scenes of this show. I would kill to get her impressions of how it turned out. Were her hands tied? Too many cooks in the kitchen? How much of what ended up on screen was her original intent, and how much was the result of everyone else’s contributions? As messy a writer as Okada can be, I cannot imagine this is what she wanted this show to be.

Sheer Unadulterated Hate

Yes, I am absolutely stalling for time by puzzling over all this, but in my defense, discovering that this show was a result of this was the nightmarish alchemy of different creators was the single most entertaining thing I’ve experienced since I started watching this garbage fire. I need to find amusement where I can here. Otherwise, I’m not gonna fucking survive eighteen more episodes of this shit. Good fucking hell, this show is awful. I could spend the entire rest of this post doing nothing but listing all the ways it makes me mad. So you know what? That’s exactly what we’re gonna fucking do. What even is there to say about the plot or characters? The plot doesn’t matter. The characters don’t matter. The themes barely matter and are as basic-bitch as one can get regardless. When I analyze shows, I talk about the things that stood out to me, what I feel is the core essence of a work, for good or ill. And in M3′s case, that core essence is all the infinite, misogynistic, appallingly stupid ways it pisses me off. This show does not deserve a kind, considerate analysis. It deserves to have the skin flayed off its back and be crucified for its sins against good taste everywhere. It deserves brutality. It deserves my sheer, frothing rage. So that’s exactly what it’s gonna fucking get. Here, in no particular order, are all the reasons (so far) that M3: The Dark Metal sucks so horrendously:

-The love triangle between Akashi, Emiru and whatsherface is dumb, shitty and pointless, because we’re never given a reason why Emiru should be attracted to him. She just starts crushing on him right off the bat for no reason and we’re told we’re supposed to care about that just on principle, despite both characters being unfathomaby unlikable.

-Mahmu, the only moderately interesting character, has already gone from vicious murder gremlin to “hurr durr big booby panty shot shy scaredy cat make me hard,” because apparently there’s nothing sexier than a helpless girl who can’t do anything without Your(tm) help and also accidentally flashes her goodies a lot for your enjoyment. (Your(tm), of course, referring to the presumed straight male audience.)

-Akashi cannot stop talking down to his female classmates, especially Emiru, who he gets to call “incompetent” on a near-episodic basis.

-A potentially interesting backstory for Emiru- she grew up so devoid of human connection that guys lusting after her body gives her a pathetic kind of fulfillment, which she’s self-aware enough to realize is fucked up- is ruined by the show itself not giving a shit about any of the girls except for their bodies.

-In all the action scenes, the guys always jump in front of the girls and take all the action while the girls hang back and do nothing, and it’s never questioned.

-Emiru is assaulted and degraded by the psycho murdered while naked in the bath, in a scene with thuddingly obvious rape overtones and sexualizing, leery camera angles. She proceeds to be degraded all throughout the next episode in gross, exploitative fashion, and the show shoves your face in every rancid detail of it.

-As if that wasn’t enough, we also get to see Emiru’s body and mind being violated in graphic detail when she turns into a monster, because this show looooooooves traumatizing women and their bodies to be Dark(tm) and Edgy(tm).

-And just to cap this whole shitshow off, the psycho responsible for Emiru’s degradation and death faces no repercussions whatsoever. Because in this world, taking known serial killers who break out of prison by brutally slaughtering police and giving them access to military-grade weaponry and free reign to prey on their teammates is just common sense. Yes, even after the military has all the evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Emiru’s breakdown was a result of Heito relentlessly abusing and assaulting her, he just shows up in class the next day and no one has a single fucking thing to say to him.

Ladies, gentlemen, and non-binary fellows of the jury, I rest my case in the trial of The People vs M3: The Dark Metal. I am certain I have given you all the evidence necessary to prove its guilt. Do your duty, citizens, and condemn this show to the pits of Tartarus where it belongs. And please, for the love of god, do not even think about tracking down this show to watch it for yourself. There is no hope. Only suffering. Get out while you still can.

Odds and Ends

-”I detest her eyes.” Because we can’t have one female character in this show who isn’t shamed right off the bat. Fuck you, show.

-Her: “Take your hands off my ass.” Him: *hands are on her thighs and not even close to her ass*

-”The truth is I annoy you.” Listen, when I’m agreeing with the evil parents in a tragic backstory flashback, something has gone horribly wrong.

-Who runs into the forest like a fucking moron after a nightmare Jesus Christ Emiru

-”Have we met before?” “You trying to pick me up?” Okay, that made me chuckle.

-Alright, that was a nice moment with the shooting stars and them silently sharing their fear. More of that, please.

-”Why... are you smiling?” WOOOOOW FUCK THIS GUY

-”Come on! Up high!” Please, save this show for me.

-Yeah, seriously lame of you not to recognize the obvious warning signs that she needed help. Suffer for it. Suffer.

-Oh, what’s with this Discount Evangelion battle music?

Eighteen episodes. Eighteen more godforsaken episodes. HELP.

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #m3 #m3 the dark metal #m3: the dark metal #m3: mortal metal memories #m3: sono kuroi hagane

[animebw]

M3: The Dark Metal: Series Reflection

As of me writing these words, it is 6 AM. I have been up since 11 AM the previous day. My sleep schedule’s been pretty erratic recently, and I’ve been getting to bed way too late on the regular. So going into August, I want to try and get my internal clock back in shape. I want to start trying to get to bed closer to midnight at the latest and wake up around 9 AM. I want to stop burning myself out by staying up so late so often. Considering how much quarantine has thrown my life into chaos, I at least owe myself that kindness. So there shouldn’t be any good reason for me to stay up long enough to see the sun rise outside my bedroom window. This is, quite frankly, the most unhealthy choice I could be making at the moment. I need to start getting to bed earlier, not later. Every instinct in my body and every ounce of common sense in my mind is telling me that this was an awful idea and I’ll regret it later. I can already feel my body start to shut down from lack of sleep. The moment I get this post out, I’m going to crash in my bed and sleep until 2 in the afternoon, and I’ll still probably be groggy when I wake up.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because I need you to understand just how much I fucking hate M3: The Dark Metal that I would push my body and mind this close to the edge just to finally be able to say I’m done.

Christ on a fucking cracker, this show sucks. It sucks so relentlessly way that I could feel my will to live leech out of me the longer I watched it. It sucks so agonizingly that almost every other second left me grinding my teeth in fury. It has some of the worst, most hateable characters I’ve ever seen. Its plot is a mess of cliches stitched together by cynicism and bile. It’s unforgivably misogynistic from its roots all the way up to the surface, every last pore and orifice oozing with disdain and outright callousness towards its female cast. It’s an apocalyptic whirlwind of awful ideas and even worse intentions, a show that hates you for watching it and seems to hate itself even more for existing. It is a show of nothing but hate. Its story is hate. Its ethos is hate. Its meaning is hate. Its presentation is hate. Its primal scream is hate. From start to finish, from top to bottom, inside and out, M3 is an expression of pure, unfiltered loathing, a noxious scream from a pathetic, twisted psyche that refuses to let you go until it smashes your skull into the wall while spitting self-righteous curses in your face.

Hyperbole, you say? Perhaps. But this kind of hyperbole is all that makes sense to describe the effect this show had on me. I have hated plenty of anime in the past, many of which I’ve talked about for this blog. But no other show has been so staggering in its hate. No other show has so utterly broken me under the yoke of its infernal burden. No other show has left me this shell-shocked, this aghast, this enraged, this fuming, this exhausted, this overwhelmed, this spent, this agonized, this empty. The awfulness of M3 is like a constant beatdown of bullshit following bullshit, sexist moment following sexist moment, scream after scream of fury at a plot that shattered under the weight of its own unexplained contrivances and bent itself over backward to excuse grinding its girls into lumps of flesh and blood over and over and fucking over again. It seems to exist for no other reason than to take pleasure in watching women suffer. It seems to make no choices other than the choices that will make its female characters squirm the hardest, scream the loudest, be strung out like broken mannequins and violated with cackling glee while the sweating, brooding, sneering, snarling, psychotic men are allowed to run free and take the story’s burden entirely on their undeserving shoulders. It is, without a doubt, the single most mean-spirited, narcissistic, incel-driven, misanthropic mindset I’ve ever seen from an anime I’ve consumed. It’s a festering pit of nightmares that drags you down and chokes you to death on bitter black blood until your spirit can never wash the taste out of its mouth. It is everything wrong with the worst of anime, in its worst possible form, in all their worst possible combinations.

It is, in short, the single worst anime I have ever seen in my life.

Yes, I’ve seen some stinkers before. Zetsuen no Tempest has held my worst-ever title for just about a year at this point (it was a show I watched for my previous Summer of Suggestions, as if the irony wasn’t sickening enough). In truth, I still think Zetsuen has my most hated overall moments in anime. The three episodes spent holding a conversation that goes absolutely fucking nowhere, the vomit-inducing “rom-com” that dominated the show’s second half, those will always stand out in my wall of infamy. At least M3 was so obliviously atrocious at points it honestly made me laugh. At least its nightmare-world aesthetic and CG robot battles are actually pretty decent eye candy. At least I got to see the show’s worst character torn to shreds and squeal like a stuck pig. But even those minor bright spots can do nothing to take away from what a suffocating experience this show is. It’s so atrocious on a near-constant level that the awfulness swallows you up and refuses to let you surface for breath even once. Watching this show is like drowning for 24 episodes, only briefly resurfacing for one brief moment near the end before the currents pull you right back under. Forcing myself to sit through it, forcing myself to think about it, forcing myself to spend so many words in so many ways ripping it apart, has been the single most agonizing experience of my anime watching “career.” There is no excuse for me spending this much thought on M3. There is nothing that can justify the mental and emotional energy I’ve wasted on this catastrophe. Every word I’ve typed about this show is a word lost to the pits of hell, sacrificed for a God who in no way deserves such fealty. Consider this reflection, then, my last act of deicide. Let the judges of the afterlife condemn me, I shall face my eternity with the knowledge my blade struck true.

Actually, you know what, that’s more poetic than this show could ever deserve. Let’s keep things nice and simple. Fuck M3: The Dark Metal. Fuck this show from the bottom of my heart. Fuck every word I’ve ever wasted on it. Let it be consigned to Tartarus where it belongs, and let us never fucking speak of it again. Except, of course, to condemn it with my lowest possible score:

1/10

Good riddance to the worst anime I’ve ever seen. And now, because it’s since passed 6:30 AM, I’m going to fall into bed and get some well-deserved sleep. Thank you all for sticking with me through this long night. I never would have survived without your love and support. To honor my sacrifice, consider asking for an invite to my Discord, where you can hang out and chat about the shows I’m watching with me and a bunch of fellow anime fans. And once I gather enough money for the Resurrection spell to raise me from the dead, I hope you’ll join me for the show that will finally take this travesty’s place:

Sora no Woto

Nowhere to go but up. God willing, the sun will shine on us again. See you next time for the start of a new adventure!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #m3 #m3 the dark metal #m3: the dark metal #m3: mortal metal memories #m3: sono kuroi hagane

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: M3 The Dark Metal, Episodes 1-3

And so we begin! In which I have... concerns. Many, many concerns.

Prison of Night

There’s a lot going on in the first few episodes of M3: The Dark Metal, but the most prominent idea is how the show’s monsters are a metaphor for being bound by the past. And you can tell the writers didn’t want you to miss it, because they have the protagonist make that connection aloud himself multiple times. The Admonitions, the themes of light and shadow, they’re all one big metaphor for being lost in the darkness of your past and not knowing how to get out. I particularly like the moment at the end of episode 1 when it turns out the Admonition the soldiers have been fighting was just looking for its lost pendant. Sure, we’ve seen plenty of shows where the monsters still retain some semblance of when they used to be human, but this is a decent enough wrinkle. And I like how the show’s aesthetic compliments those ideas. The way it portrays the Lightless World and the nightmares within is somewhere between Lovecraft, Van Gough, and Shaft, a mixture of abstract cosmic horror and trippy, surreal subconscious-mining. And despite bearing the curse of being a mecha show with CG mechas, I think the CG is actually handled pretty well. The mechas have distinct designs that are animated with impressive detail, fluid and weighty and integrated well with the rest of the show’s world. Ditto the cool crystaline designs for the monsters. This show can pull out a far better action scene with those elements than I might have expected going in.

And, let me just check and make sure... yep, that’s all the positive things I have to say about the first three episodes of M3.

Now that’s out of the way: holy fucking Jesus, I think I’m gonna hate this show.

Shame, Shame, Shame

Look, I’ve disliked plenty of shows I’ve tackled on this blog. I’ve even outright loathed a handful. The risk of choosing to stick with every show until the end is that every once in a while I hit a dud I have no choice but to suffer through. But it’s been a bit since I was gripped with such visceral distaste for an Anime Binge-Watcher analysis. M3 isn’t just bad, it’s the particular kind of ugly bad- ugly in the storytelling sensibilities, if not the production itself- that really gets under my skin. It’s the kind of noxious, unpleasant, cynical cynicism that makes me feel like the show hates its audience and has no respect for people as a whole. It’s the kind of bad that has resulted in some of my most hated shows ever, stuff like Future Diary, Guilty Crown, and Zetsuen no Tempest. Hell, there’s even some eerie similarities to Guilty Crown just to drive the point home. A dark, edgy mecha series with additional supernatural fuckery, the protagonist’s brown-haired mom is also a super-scientist working support for his unit, the lighting is overly bloomed and washed-out with a pale rainbow of colors, and the OP is far too good to be saddled with a show this bad. If nothing else, I’ll at least have that to jam to every time I force myself another episode.

So what exactly do I mean when I describe M3 in this way? Well, for one thing, I despite pretty much all the characters. There’s that one dude who’s just here for a good time, and he’s alright. Aside from him, though? Akashi is a brooding misogynist dipshit who deserves to get the self-satisfied sadboi piss beaten out of him. His best friend who’s name I don’t remember is boring and has nothing to do. Emiru is a sexist jerkwad’s idea of what a “bitchy” teenage girl acts like. Mahmu just wants everyone to die, which, well, I can get behind, but we’ll get back to her in a bit. There’s no charm to these characters, nothing that makes me think, “yeah, I’d like to watch them fight monsters for 24 episodes.” There’s not even any humanity to how unlikable they are. They’re just dour, boring and selfish because I guess dour, boring and selfish is supposed to be edgy and cool. But all it does is make me want to punch them all in the face.

And I want to circle back to sexism, because hoo boy does M3 smack of it. There’s a reason I despise characters like Emiru, who do basically nothing but flirt obnoxiously, scream when things go wrong, and act mean and condescending to everyone around them. But it’s not just because the characters themselves are annoying as hell. It’s because they’re annoying in such a patently unreal way. Emiru’s a walking caricature of a snotty, bratty teenage bitch, which makes it permissible for the guy characters to be flagrantly sexist towards her by calling her “pig girl” and saying she’s “obscene.” Basically, she’s an excuse for the show’s protagonist to act like a sexist jerk and be justified in doing so because hey, doesn’t that stuck-up bitch deserve to get her pride trampled on? It’s such an obvious, lazy trope, and it speaks volumes about the way M3 views women. Oh sure, it’ll play pretend and make the instructor an over-the-top creep it can brutally slaughter to say “See? We aren’t sexist! We killed the guy creeping on the teenage girls!” But then it’ll go ahead and creep on the teenage girls itself with shitty fanservice, because it doesn’t actually care about giving sexists their just desserts, it only cares about giving other sexists their just desserts so the audience projecting onto Akashi can feel safe in ogling their bouncing boobs and sneering at Emiru alongside him, because hey, at least we’re not that guy. Yet another unfortunate trait borrowed from Guilty Crown that’s driving this show into the muck.

What the Fuck is Going On?

So with no characters I can relate to, it falls to the plot to try and salvage some measure of investment. Unfortunately, it falls victim to anime’s cardinal sin: not explaining shit and hoping that hiding everything behind a veil of mystery will keep you chasing after the answers like Hansel and Gretel being led by a gumdrop trail to the witch’s house to be boiled alive. I am at least vaguely interested to know what happened when these teens where all trapped together in the Lightless World as kids, and how much that experience is still affecting them. But beyond that, this show’s plot is just a mess. There are so many moments that utterly baffle me with how little sense they make. For example, how the absolute fuck is Mahmu apparently writing the very story she’s in? You’d have to think finding this out would be a huge reveal that completely changes our understanding of the show. But M3 just brushes by it like it’s nothing. Emiru finds out this girl is somehow literally changing reality by writing her own self-insert fanfiction, and instead of following up on any of the questions that would raise, she just jumps ahead to Mamhu’s next plot point and has no follow-up questions. It’s like the show just assumes we already get what’s going on so it doesn’t have to explain itself, but we don’t know what’s going on because what’s going on is so patently fucking absurd that it has no grounding in reality.

And that exact tendency runs like a cancer all throughout this plot. Time and time again, something will happen that seems like it needs more explanation, but then it just isn’t explained and the show moves on like you’re supposed to get it already. How does is that one dude somehow taste the fear in the instructor’s blood? That’s not a normal thing to do, but Akashi has no reaction to his classmate literally licking the blood off a dead corpse. Some random psychopath escapes prison with no explanation for how he somehow broke out of what’s almost certainly a high security facility, we’re told nothing about his motivations or goals. and suddenly the higher-ups are preparing to have him join the mecha team. Like, didn’t you say this guy brutally slaughtered his family? Why the absolute fuck are you giving him a military job instead of throwing him back in prison and letting him rot? Also, why was Emiru interested enough in the Reaper to try and track it down? And how did Mahmu somehow manage to escape and run back to warn everyone when the psycho showed up? Hell, what was the point of them going to track down the Reaper anyway if the scientist squad was planning to outfit Akashi in it? The plot was heading there regardless, so there was no reason for Emiru and Mahmu to go look for it at all! And what about that moment where Emiru reads part of Mahmu’s journal in front of the class to shame her, and then everyone just... has no fucking reaction and continues their conversation like the interruption never happened? Like, seriously, what the fuck? No one even bothers asking, “Uh, what are you talking about?” They just completely ignore it? THIS IS NOT HOW PEOPLE FUCKING ACT.

Yeah, this was bad. This is one of the worst starts to a show I’ve gotten in a while. Maybe things will pick up eventually, and by god, I hope they do. But if the far more likely outcome occurs and it stays this bad all the way, then M3 is gonna be a nightmare to get through. Lord, give me the strength to see it through.

Odds and Ends

-Robot basketball, huh? I dig it.

-”There was no heart in that whatsoever.” Me@ThisShow

-”Are you going through a sexually frustrated stage?” Woooow, fuck this guy.

-”You’re the one who deserves to die.” WOOOOOOOW, fuck this guy.

-”Why are you all asleep?!” Lol, don’t sleep through the critical exposition dump, guys.

-You know, you can’t just cut to mysteeeerious flashbacks to stop me asking questions, show. You still haven’t explained any of why this is happening.

Alright, and with that, we’re on our way. Please, god, let this show get better. See you next time!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #m3 #m3 the dark metal #m3: the dark metal #m3: mortal metal memories #m3: sono kuroi hagane

[animebw]

M3: The Dark Metal

Greetings, all! I’m The Anime Binge-Watcher, a blog dedicated to me binge-watching anime in episodic chunks and analyzing it in long-form text posts for your enjoyment! Today, I continue my second annual Summer of Suggestions, in which I solely watch shows recommended by you folks until the end of August. And the next one on the list is a show I know literally nothing about: M3: The Dark Metal!

Judging by the cover art, I’m guessing this is some sort of high-school-based sci-fi conspiracy show, but I could be totally wrong. Only one way to find out, I suppose. Please don’t spoil me on anything, as I prefer going into shows as blind as possible. Expect my first update later today, and thank you for joining me on this new adventure!

Schedule: I watch two shows concurrently, alternating each day. Currently, my other show is Yama no Susume. Feel free to visit my home page and explore my extensive backlog of previous binge-watches, a list of shows I’ll be watching in the future, a link to my Discord where you can hang out with me and fellow anime fans to chat about the shows I’m watching, and much more!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #m3 #m3 the dark metal #m3: the dark metal #m3: mortal metal memories #m3: sono kuroi hagane