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<\/a><\/p>\nFirst rule of character design: the shortest girl gets the oversized sniper rifle.<\/em><\/p>\n This show with an incredibly long title follows Girls Und Panzer<\/i>\u2019s lead in adopting the plot structure of a typical sports anime, but trades vintage tanks for airsoft guns.\u00a0 The idea of giving a cast of high school girls an arsenal of replica assault rifles may make some gun control proponents a bit uneasy, but the series itself is generally competent and good-natured.\u00a0 Apart from a few awkward episodes, C3<\/i> generally avoids the temptation to sexualize the \u201cgirls with guns\u201d premise, and the plot focuses primarily on themes of friendship and self-empowerment.\u00a0 The main character\u2019s overactive imagination allows for some interesting stylistic choices as she pictures the airsoft battles as cinematic action sequences.\u00a0 C3<\/i> won\u2019t rock your world, but it\u2019s certainly good enough to be worth watching.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Good luck imitating that hairstyle, cosplayers.<\/em><\/p>\n If you took Girls Und Panzer<\/i>, combined it with the classic board game Battleship, and cranked the proverbial volume to eleven, you might end up with Arpeggio of Blue Steel<\/i>.\u00a0 The show features an armada of unmanned naval vessels, each one operated by an artificial intelligence personified as (you guessed it!) an attractive woman in a slightly ridiculous outfit.\u00a0 The lively and diverse battleship girls start out as the villains of the series, fighting against a ragtag band of uninteresting humans and their awesome submarine.\u00a0 As the series goes on, however, we begin to get hints that the dreadnought dames might not be all bad, and perhaps there\u2019s hope for peace.\u00a0 Blue Steel<\/i> is a strange series for sure, but isn\u2019t all good anime a bit bonkers?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This was about as tame as the promotional art ever got.<\/em><\/p>\n You may remember this series from the \u201cWar on Pants\u201d promotional campaign that Funimation ran for it.\u00a0 To be perfectly honest, they were right on target with that slogan, since the female cast of Strike Witches<\/i> apparently never took Wardrobe 101.\u00a0 Ostensibly modeled after famous World War II pilots, the plucky airborne heroines suit up with some baffling leg propeller units, then take to the sky to shoot down aliens with machine guns.\u00a0 If you can get past the absurd outfits and sleazy camera angles, there\u2019s a surprisingly good sci-fi action show to be found.\u00a0 If not, you may want to avoid flying these friendly skies.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Never use the expression “Just shoot me” at this school.<\/em><\/p>\n If you thought the idea of arming schoolgirls with replica assault rifles was an odd premise, you may want to sit down for this one.\u00a0 Upotte<\/i> takes place at a special school where the students don\u2019t just use firearms, they literally are firearms.\u00a0 Automatic rifles from around the world are personified as quirky teenagers, with each weapon\u2019s characteristics featured in the character\u2019s personality or appearance.\u00a0 For example, the M16A4 fires a three-round burst instead of being fully automatic, so its character is only energetic in quick bursts.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve just been hired by the ATF and need to familiarize yourself with the weapons you\u2019ll be seizing from criminals, this is probably the most amusing way to do it.\u00a0 While it\u2019s surprisingly informative about its subject matter, Upotte<\/i> also plays the sex appeal card on a regular basis and is genuinely bizarre.\u00a0 It\u2019s probably best approached with an open mind and perhaps a few bottles of beer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It seems like the Blu-Ray release of Girls Und Panzer from Sentai Filmworks has put the fan-favorite series back into discussion lately, and it\u2019s not difficult to see why.\u00a0 It has the sort of delightfully crazy premise that only anime could bring us, and show itself is surprisingly entertaining.\u00a0 It\u2019s also not the only recent [Read more…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":505,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions\/505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Arpeggio of Blue Steel<\/i><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nStrike Witches<\/i><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nUpotte!!<\/i><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n