Noitamina mark 2. Also probably the last worthwhile show of the season. No, that Gainax show will not be worth watching. There are no actual true Gainax veterans working on it. They’re all on Idolm@ster. No really.
No.6 is a sci-fi series about the perfect futuristic city that turns out to be not so perfect as it appears because it is being controlled by The Man, and so on and so forth. What No.6 manages to do better than other sci-fi series like it, such as Toward the Terra and Jyu Oh Sei, is it focuses on characterisation instead of masturbating to its own science. I particularly liked how clear it was that the main character was more intelligent than the boy from the lower rungs. Each of their personalities were etched by the environment they lived in, but also they became part of those societies in the first place because of their IQ. The pampered kid actually comes off as intelligent, albeit not in the key area of recognising when he might be in danger. The runaway kid is naturally jumpy and suspicious of everything around him, but he’s also not as quick on the uptake on many things as the pampered kid. It told us about this sci-fi setting through how the characters act, rather than dull technobabble monologue, and I can’t praise it enough for doing that.
This is where I generally start nitpicking, but honestly it’s hard to pick holes in this episode. OK, the kid having the daydream where he started to dissipate into leaves was pretentious and silly, but otherwise No.6 had the most solid first episode of the season. Now solid doesn’t necessarily mean best. It didn’t have the intrigue of Kamisama Dolls, the thrill of PenguinDrum, nor the perfected atmosphere of Bunny Drop. However it also didn’t have derpy animation like Kamisama Dolls, was more even than PenguinDrum, and held more weight to it than Bunny Drop. For the record, those are my 4 picks of the season, based off first episodes. No. 6, Bunny Drop, PenguinDrum and Kamisama Dolls. No idea what I want to blog out of the 4 though. Possibly PenguinDrum, although it’s a bit intimidating to blog about something that DEEP.
Actually, there is one thing I’d like to rant about. I have seen several people in blogs and forums say they won’t be watching this because of the yaoi/BL content. Either that, or they’ll keep watching but will drop at the slightest hint of BL, as though they’re on permanent guard against such a thing happening. Firstly, this isn’t yaoi. Two boys holding hands lying down in bed together does come off as a relationship slightly more than platonic, and that scene where one pinned the other down is crying out to make a spooning joke, but their relationship doesn’t go beyond anything than hand holding from what I’ve heard from the novel readers (just like Kimi ni Todoke then haha obvious joke).
But, more importantly, even if they did become An Item, even if this show was yaoi, why does it matter? The scene wasn’t played for fanservice. It’s not like Sekai Ichi where they linger on shots of them kissing for added squee value, crowbarring in the romance. The two boys’ relationship in No.6 is believable and worked well into the story. Are you so unsure of your masculinity, so steeped in pandering culture, that you can’t watch a relationship between two men without fleeing because they might have strong feelings for each other? Is male anime fandom so homophobic that we have to maintain constance vigilance in case you have to bail because two men looked at each other in the eyes for a bit longer than you are comfortable with? Why does it matter? If the show can still tell a good story using their relationship, why can’t we just appreciate that? Seriously men, get over yourselves.