what i was forced to watch this week #48: da capo

I was forced to watch Da Capo 2 and Da Capo 2 2: The Search for Curly’s Gold two years when they aired. I couldn’t keep a straight face during them because of how insanely cliched they were. They crossed the line over into camp. OTOUTO-KUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!. For reference, here is my post from my old blog about the first episode of Da Capo 2:

OMG A LITTLE SISTER CHARACTER MAKING A FACE MOEEEEEEEE

OMG A CHILDHOOD FRIEND CHARACTER BEING NERVOUS BECAUSE SHE WANTS TO CONFESS MOEEEEEEEE

OMG THE CHILDHOOD FRIEND CHARACTER THINKING THAT SHE'S BEING IGNORED BECAUSE SHE IS THE CHILDHOOD FRIEND CHARACTER AND HE DOESN'T THINK THAT WAY ABOUT HER EVEN THOUGH SHE THINKS THAT WAY ABOUT HIM MOEEEEEEEE

OMG THE CHILDHOOD FRIEND CHARACTER IS STILL BEING NERVOUS BECAUSE SHE STILL HASN'T CONFESSED YET MOEEEEEEEE

OMG THE CHILDHOOD FRIEND CHARACTER IS FEELING INSECURE BECAUSE THE POPULAR OLDER SISTER CHARACTER FUSSES OVER THE SAME BOY AND HE OBVIOUSLY LIKES HER MORE BECAUSE SHE SO MUCH MORE PRETTY AND POPULAR AND BETTER IN EVERY WAY THAT SHE CAN THINK OF MOEEEEEEEE

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG THE CHILDHOOD FRIEND CHARACTER CONFESSING TO A BOY UNDER A SAKURA TREE MOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKJDFLKHALKJ;;;;;;;;;::dies::

Oh, and I also laughed at her confession because she she simply said, “I’VE ALWAYS LIKED YOU!”, to which he replied, “All right, Koko.” All right what? All right I’ll go out with you? All right we’re boyfriend and girlfriend now? All right so let’s do it? It doesn’t help either when I’ve got the fact that this game is an eroge floating around in the back of my head, which makes me lean further towards the “All right so let’s do it” side than the “All right I’ll go out with you” side.

I should probably give Da Capo some more leeway than I gave Da Capo 2 since it’s one of the earlier bishoujo game adaptation anime, but I just couldn’t. The first problem is that it can always be hard to watch an early entrant into some kind of genre because so many of its cliches and convention have been both recycled and parodied endlessly by that point. I do have two issues as to why this isn’t necessarily an unfair way of thinking. The first is simple: just because something is one of the first to do something doesn’t mean it necessarily did that well. That leads to the second: Da Capo recycles some of these elements so many times it already drains the life out of them.

I started to take screencaps of this to remind myself of how many times these were happening, but eventually just gave up. Here are some examples: 3 of the first 4 episodes opened with “Wake up, Nii-san! You’ll be late! Oh, Nii-san!”; the same block of episodes featured about as many “Nii-san no…BAKA!”s; one episode featured no less than three “Nii-san no ecchi!”s in as many minutes; and of course, when Jun’ichi and Nemu are about to do it, obviously she gives one of those “…but it’s okay if it’s with you, Nii-san.”

The other huge problem with Da Capo is that it has a ludicrous amount of filler. It has so much filler its filler has filler. The show format consists of first of about 15 or 16 episodes of filler. Then, two of which are recap episodes. Yes, that’s right: recapping filler multiple times. Then, there are 10 episodes to cover the plot. There’s another wrinkle in here: from around episode 8 or so until episode 21, the last 6 minutes of each episode consist of some filler omake. These are completely incongruous. We’ll be following one character’s storyline. They’ll be basically the only (female) character in the episode. The business is often times serious. Then, it just switches over to one of the other characters, who we may not have really seen anything regarding for a few episodes, who will then do something like walk down a beach for 1/3 of the episode.

I understand that these otaku database-type shows are less about things like “plot” or “characters” and more about supplying a set of characteristics of female characters. The problem, however is that the show still tries to have a serious plot, but has almost no time to do it. Da Capo 2 had two 13 episode seasons, and was basically condensed to the point that it probably should have been. Da Capo, on the other hand consists of a pair of 26 episode seasons (note: I only watched the first season, and won’t be watching the second since it was not burned) and still has to try squeeze in the plot in something like 6 episodes. This results in trying to stuff an entire character’s story into sometimes less than a single episode.

The whole filler thing was possibly the most awkward because of the setting’s magical realism. There’s a sakura tree that can grant wishes and the characters have various magical powers, like being able magically create candy. This stuff doesn’t come up in the filler, however. It doesn’t really appear until the plot starts, which was really jarring. That’s the kind of thing that is pretty fundamental to the setting. I’m almost certain Nemu coughed before episode 24, but no petals came out until then. Why wasn’t Kotori hearing any of the thoughts of the judges during the beauty pageant?

But who cares about all that. Do you want to “accidentally” walk in on your kawaii desu imouto-kyara while she is peeing? You’ve come to the right place!

Also,

Would I watch it even if I weren’t forced? You can laugh at it for a few episodes, but after that point it just gets tedious.

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