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EP. REVIEW: Akebi's Sailor Uniform


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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4164
PostPosted: Wed Feb 23, 2022 9:07 am Reply with quote
dm wrote:
Animegomaniac wrote:
The "friendship" confession; "Let's carefully observe their body language, expressions and the situation." Conclusion: "Washio-san and Nawashiro-san are good friends!"


Oh. You thought that was a big deal? This is an anime set at an all-girls' school, after all, so one kind-of expects some Class S (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_S_(genre)) to show up, and out behind the gym, or whatever, is where you expect such confessions.


No, I think the scene having an audience who don't exactly know what they're seeing is what matters.

Quote:
And then we get to the sleepover – or at least, the visit-over – which is just as charming and thankfully bereft of the series' early male gaze (outside of her Komichi's sister slapping her butt for comedy), making this episode just… really peaceful and charming.


This. I gave Akebi a pass for immediately stripping out of her clothes to reveal her school swimsuit, I have no idea why Erika was wearing a wetsuit underneath her clothes underneath the waders.

I've seen wholesome before and this isn't it. But at least I'm not trying to fit the series into a narrative it's not adhering to.
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Gonzo_Deluxe



Joined: 01 Nov 2020
Posts: 24
PostPosted: Wed Feb 23, 2022 12:51 pm Reply with quote
Animegomaniac wrote:
BonusStage wrote:
Tropical Forest wrote:
I personally didn't really see how the fanservice can be as problematic as the discussion implies..


Problematic is in the eye of the beholder. Generally speaking, I notice some people have thresholds involving things like voyeurism, underage characters, objectification, and nonconsensual situations. Akebi's Sailor Uniform has a lot of those things, although I have no issue with them myself.

Akebi's Sailor Uniform at it's core is a series that celebrates the innocent and sexuality of girlhood. Finding themselves, growing up, experimenting, and overall journey in life Not every chapter is filled with fanservice, but a lot are, and it ranges from simple lingering shots on the girls bodies to full on sexual experimenting between the characters. There's a few upcoming scenes coming up I'm really interested to see how Cloverworks animates since they've done a pretty amazing job so far.


Slow Cast has high school girls who could pass for Middle School while the Middle School girls here wouldn't seem out of place in Negima... which itself is third year middle school but that's my point: intent. Curiously, the larger problem here doesn't seem to be the fanservice which is barely a patch on Negima but rather the adult themes... just having seen Episode 5, I'm going to have to start.... I know what I saw but what I saw was also through the POV of... Look, you'll know it when you see it, that's all I can say.

Regardless, it's exactly what I said previously: There are girls who are in the KNOW and other girls just watch who haven't a clue. But they are taking notes, that's a new bit of information.

This show is weird. I've been thinking it since that girl sniffed her nail clippers but episode 5 was really... that art shift, it was the art shift. Episode 5: I Want to Learn Lots. I read the episode description... twice... and pressed Play anyway and was not surprised at what I saw in the slightest. Except for that Art Shift. It wasn't Fan Service, it was... something else.

Innocent or innocence? I have never used that term when talking about this show and I never will. Curiosity? As Alice herself said, this show is Curiouser and Curiouser.


I think the word people are looking for is "honest". Much like Judy Blume's writing back in the 1970s and 80s, the anime is honest about what tweens get up to, even if it makes the adults uncomfortable. It's not innocent, but it's not prurient either. It's almost as if it's being told by Akebi as an adult reminiscing about her school days to her own children. The odd lingering gaze doesn't necessarily represent a male gaze here. Quirks of memory, odd things that capture a child's attention. When I look at how this story is being told, it feels like an idyll more than anything else. If this was intended as an ecchi title it's not doing a very good job of it, so clearly something more is going on.
Ref: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idyll
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Kyiev





PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2022 9:41 am Reply with quote
i know that cloverworks have a lot of freelancers working with them but they should expand and establish more studio like what mappa is doing today Cool
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darkchibi07



Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 5521
PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2022 12:27 pm Reply with quote
In this show keeping up with its consistently good animation, this episode also gave us a sample of what a female-version of Free could be like! Crying or Very sad

Considering the girls are working on this sports festival probably until the end of this cour, I do wonder if we're going to see some really great animation show pieces on some of the sport activities in the future.
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dm
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Joined: 24 Sep 2010
Posts: 1487
PostPosted: Tue Mar 08, 2022 1:10 pm Reply with quote
Episode 9

Quote:
Akebi's Sailor Uniform has gone from a series with enough “ick” to make me anxious to a pleasant watch on a week-to-week basis. "Pleasant" perhaps doesn't adequately describe how wonderful this series has become, but I suppose the joy of slice of life is that you don't always have to have big words: you can simply have feelings and luxuriate in the joy that is seeing a bunch of people experience the world.


I've been thinking this since, I think, about episode three. The first two episodes caused me to wonder if I should continue with this series, but after the third episode the series firmly settled into a delightful, sweet, innocence.

Plus, it's so beautiful.

(I can't get over the gingerbread house that Komichi lives in.)
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Shay Guy



Joined: 03 Jul 2009
Posts: 2363
PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2022 10:12 pm Reply with quote
I haven't been watching this series, but I've been following the reviews out of curiosity. And I think they've made it clear to me that even in its improved, de-icked form, it's not going to be my thing.

The phrase "building blocks for making fantastic memories" jumped out at me in this review, because I've been becoming more conscious lately of just how much manga and anime makes reference to the necessity of "making good memories" (or some other positive adjective), especially ones with teenage casts. And I've honestly grown to find it kind of alienating. I will never know what it’s like to be a teenager with friends your own age, or with more than one friend at all. And I’ll never know what it’s like to be an adult who had an adolescence like that. And sometimes it seems like there’s just no place in manga for someone like me, or like the message overall is that “happiness” means never having to become someone like me.

It's pretty much the same reason "seishun" has become my least favorite Japanese word. (Which has led the first Danganronpa game to become even more interesting to me, because it's in large part about the destruction of "seishun", and how one responds to it.)
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Chiibi



Joined: 19 Dec 2011
Posts: 4829
PostPosted: Wed May 18, 2022 3:40 pm Reply with quote
Oh look, Dan Schneider is directing anime now. Laughing FEETS!!!

Jokes aside....I was on board with it until the toe-sniffing scene. This is definitely too alienating and fetishy for me.

What bothers me more is these girls look like they're 16, not 12. I absolutely hate the Artistic Age trope....it's very weird....if you are going to draw them tall with actual bust-lines, then put them in high school FFS. Rolling Eyes I'm a grown adult and 13-year-old Akebi is both taller AND bustier than me in my 30s. So like....WTH lol

It really is a shame because as others said, the rest of the show itself looks gorgeous.

But I do think it's funny people were bothering by the butt-slapping scene. That wasn't sexual, guys. Kids do these things. Have you never been around little kids? They LOVE to smack butts! Most kids are fond of the subject of butts (all potty humor really) in general and if there's a butt within their reach, they will smack it, normally yelling "BUTT!" as they do so. Laughing I did it to my parents as a kid and I also have seen kids do it to their parents. Kids think this is the funniest joke in the world, even more so when they are yelled at for this act.
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