Spring-Loaded
Member
I'm someplace where I can't post images at the moment, sorry.
In the past few months, I watched two different anime series, both of which consist, in large part, of fanservice. Highschool of the Dead and Master of Martial Hearts.
Just to preface, I watched some of the first episode of Highschool of the Dead some weeks prior and I just had to quit; at the time, it felt awkward seeing such blatant panty shots (while the wearer is getting eaten, no less) and the like. I started watching The Walking Dead instead to get my zombie fix. I'd heard about how Master of Martial Hearts was pure garbage a while before that decided to watch it on a whim. I then went back to HotD to get rid of the taste of MoMH. While I immediately noticed the difference in the overall quality of both shows, what stood out to me was the effectiveness of each show's fanservice. Each is over-the-top, yet that's where their similarities end. There were two reasons why:
1. Believability
Something that I believe is helpful in every single method of story telling or entertainment is "believability." Even if your story is medieval high fantasy, you can't just have a wizard summon a Cadillac.
HotD does have gratuitous panty shots, yet what I didn't appreciate about them until I saw MoMH was that they almost all make sense in context, at least in accordance the show's established laws of gravity/physics, which allows the fanservice to compliment the situation rather than feel like the sole purpose of a given scene. There's a part where two of the characters are are driving through hordes of zombies in an amphibious jeep they found and they drive into a river, splashing up water and drenching the girl riding in the back. Since her uniform is white, you see everything; you see it all. The guy driving notices too and reacts according to the "chaste main character" code of staring, then sheepishly and hurriedly averting one's eyes. This ends up being equal parts "funny because it's true/believable," tantalizing because wet boobs and exciting because it happens as a result of the story in a convincing manner (them trying to travel down the river where there are no zombies).
Even when HotD does something absurd with it's fanservice (i.e. the infamous "Matrix boobs" scene), it still manages to keep it from bringing everything to a screeching halt. That scene, which involves a rifle bullet flying between the katana-wielding character's breasts as she slices up zombies, takes place after a car crash that leaves the heroes stranded and backed against wall. The one character that was riding on top of the car falls and hurts herself, so another jumps down to help her, but needs to use her rifle that's still strapped to her. In his haste, he ends up causing her boobs to jiggle when he fires her gun. The threat of the heroes being eaten manages to keep the insanity of the fanservice
in check and by this point, there's enough reason to care about the characters.
MoMH is about a fighting tournament in which women do battle in sorta fetishy costumes (they just happen to be wearing their work outfits; stewardess, teacher, shrine maiden, Etc.). Almost whenever they land an attack, it causes their opponent's clothes to be blown off as if they were tissue paper. One girl gets punched in the shoulder and her ass explodes out the back of her pants. This scenario falls into the uncanny valley; we know asses don't work like that at all. Seeing the girl's butt cheeks burst through her pants like the Kool-Aid man is not tantalizing, only strange. Had her opponent grabbed her there in an attempt to throw her and then her pants got ripped, it would not be so jarring.
Even if this fits within the show's world, MoMH comes across as "cheating," in that it the writers/animators couldn't come up with more natural ways for the fighters' clothes to come off. Just like in a contrived action sequence, you find yourself thinking "well that was convenient," rather than being into the action.
The fights in MoMH make no damn sense either and there were multiple points where I simply had to stop watching because it became too intensely stupid. Keep in mind that I hardly bat an eye at the aforementioned Matrix-boobs from HotD.
2. Substance beyond the service
There is nothing to MoMH beyond the fanservice, at least until the fifth and final episode when a nightmarish info-dump is dropped on the viewers, which is upsetting in it's own right, even more so after being tricked into believing the show is a one-dimensional ecchi series for 4/5s of the show. The story is stupid, the characters are stupid, the dialogue is dumb no matter the dub, the animation appears to be low-budget, the choreography is trash and there is essentially no story progression at all; it just meanders for four episodes with almost nothing learned about the characters' situation (until the Shyamalan episode 5). If you were to remove all of the fanservice, there would be almost no reason to watch it. Even though the fanservice is garbage too, it's really the glue that holds everything together (that glue is the most watered down, off-brand paste ever though).
The main character of MoMH just inexplicably is good at and loves fighting and the audience is given no inkling as to why until the end and even then, it's not clear. There's hardly any way for the audience to relate to her beyond her initial confusion about the tournament (though she's horrified by the ending, which is easy to relate to).
On the other hand, if you were to remove all of the fanservice from HotD, you'd still be left with a compelling zombie-apocalypse story. The main cast looks for their families, does their best to help those they come across, and are forced to make tough decisions as to where to go and what to do. I'd argue it's better than The Walking Dead TV show and the manga had a couple genuinely tragic moments after the heroes reach the mall that I found to be quite powerful.
The main cast are mostly high school kids and, though they all rise to the challenge in their own ways, they come across as genuine. Any scenes that involve romantic/sexual tension in them are funny/cute as they are in other high-school rom-com shows, but there's the bittersweet reality of their situation at the back of their minds, or at times, right in their faces. That's one of the most compelling aspects of zombie stories: not just trying to survive, but trying to live after the end of the world. The fanservice serves as a respite from the horrors the cast has and will face.
But yeah, Master of Martial Hearts is woefully bad. Now feel free to post that MAtrix-boobs gif.
In the past few months, I watched two different anime series, both of which consist, in large part, of fanservice. Highschool of the Dead and Master of Martial Hearts.
Just to preface, I watched some of the first episode of Highschool of the Dead some weeks prior and I just had to quit; at the time, it felt awkward seeing such blatant panty shots (while the wearer is getting eaten, no less) and the like. I started watching The Walking Dead instead to get my zombie fix. I'd heard about how Master of Martial Hearts was pure garbage a while before that decided to watch it on a whim. I then went back to HotD to get rid of the taste of MoMH. While I immediately noticed the difference in the overall quality of both shows, what stood out to me was the effectiveness of each show's fanservice. Each is over-the-top, yet that's where their similarities end. There were two reasons why:
1. Believability
Something that I believe is helpful in every single method of story telling or entertainment is "believability." Even if your story is medieval high fantasy, you can't just have a wizard summon a Cadillac.
HotD does have gratuitous panty shots, yet what I didn't appreciate about them until I saw MoMH was that they almost all make sense in context, at least in accordance the show's established laws of gravity/physics, which allows the fanservice to compliment the situation rather than feel like the sole purpose of a given scene. There's a part where two of the characters are are driving through hordes of zombies in an amphibious jeep they found and they drive into a river, splashing up water and drenching the girl riding in the back. Since her uniform is white, you see everything; you see it all. The guy driving notices too and reacts according to the "chaste main character" code of staring, then sheepishly and hurriedly averting one's eyes. This ends up being equal parts "funny because it's true/believable," tantalizing because wet boobs and exciting because it happens as a result of the story in a convincing manner (them trying to travel down the river where there are no zombies).
Even when HotD does something absurd with it's fanservice (i.e. the infamous "Matrix boobs" scene), it still manages to keep it from bringing everything to a screeching halt. That scene, which involves a rifle bullet flying between the katana-wielding character's breasts as she slices up zombies, takes place after a car crash that leaves the heroes stranded and backed against wall. The one character that was riding on top of the car falls and hurts herself, so another jumps down to help her, but needs to use her rifle that's still strapped to her. In his haste, he ends up causing her boobs to jiggle when he fires her gun. The threat of the heroes being eaten manages to keep the insanity of the fanservice
in check and by this point, there's enough reason to care about the characters.
MoMH is about a fighting tournament in which women do battle in sorta fetishy costumes (they just happen to be wearing their work outfits; stewardess, teacher, shrine maiden, Etc.). Almost whenever they land an attack, it causes their opponent's clothes to be blown off as if they were tissue paper. One girl gets punched in the shoulder and her ass explodes out the back of her pants. This scenario falls into the uncanny valley; we know asses don't work like that at all. Seeing the girl's butt cheeks burst through her pants like the Kool-Aid man is not tantalizing, only strange. Had her opponent grabbed her there in an attempt to throw her and then her pants got ripped, it would not be so jarring.
Even if this fits within the show's world, MoMH comes across as "cheating," in that it the writers/animators couldn't come up with more natural ways for the fighters' clothes to come off. Just like in a contrived action sequence, you find yourself thinking "well that was convenient," rather than being into the action.
The fights in MoMH make no damn sense either and there were multiple points where I simply had to stop watching because it became too intensely stupid. Keep in mind that I hardly bat an eye at the aforementioned Matrix-boobs from HotD.
2. Substance beyond the service
There is nothing to MoMH beyond the fanservice, at least until the fifth and final episode when a nightmarish info-dump is dropped on the viewers, which is upsetting in it's own right, even more so after being tricked into believing the show is a one-dimensional ecchi series for 4/5s of the show. The story is stupid, the characters are stupid, the dialogue is dumb no matter the dub, the animation appears to be low-budget, the choreography is trash and there is essentially no story progression at all; it just meanders for four episodes with almost nothing learned about the characters' situation (until the Shyamalan episode 5). If you were to remove all of the fanservice, there would be almost no reason to watch it. Even though the fanservice is garbage too, it's really the glue that holds everything together (that glue is the most watered down, off-brand paste ever though).
The main character of MoMH just inexplicably is good at and loves fighting and the audience is given no inkling as to why until the end and even then, it's not clear. There's hardly any way for the audience to relate to her beyond her initial confusion about the tournament (though she's horrified by the ending, which is easy to relate to).
On the other hand, if you were to remove all of the fanservice from HotD, you'd still be left with a compelling zombie-apocalypse story. The main cast looks for their families, does their best to help those they come across, and are forced to make tough decisions as to where to go and what to do. I'd argue it's better than The Walking Dead TV show and the manga had a couple genuinely tragic moments after the heroes reach the mall that I found to be quite powerful.
The main cast are mostly high school kids and, though they all rise to the challenge in their own ways, they come across as genuine. Any scenes that involve romantic/sexual tension in them are funny/cute as they are in other high-school rom-com shows, but there's the bittersweet reality of their situation at the back of their minds, or at times, right in their faces. That's one of the most compelling aspects of zombie stories: not just trying to survive, but trying to live after the end of the world. The fanservice serves as a respite from the horrors the cast has and will face.
But yeah, Master of Martial Hearts is woefully bad. Now feel free to post that MAtrix-boobs gif.
