Wanna Be the Strongest! Episode 11 - Pure Soul!

Late posts are late because I've been busy formatting a hard drive. These things happen. Thankfully, I still have enough good space left elsewhere to do necessary things related to this blog, so let's just get down to business.

I really just want to point out that I hate this show with a burning passion, because it is a waste of everything. It's a waste of time. A waste of effort. One might even say it was a waste of money to create. It could've been at least okay, but it has been slated to never rise above mere mediocrity because the people creating it just want to shit out every show based off of a manga they can get their hands on. Period.

Go ahead. Look at what show they've got airing next season. I'll wait.

In fact, screw it. I'll just link you the video.

It seemed like it could actually be decent. And then I realized: wait, why are they showing fanservice in the middle of a trailer? And then? I realized with horror at the end who was responsible for releasing this.

I've got a show to tear apart. Let's do this.



Does anyone remember what was going on in this show? Let's just boil it down real quick then. Two idols get together, one wants to basically be the best and is about ready to send her opponent down a flight of stairs to do it when they go do some idol-wrestling promotional crossover shit. Number one girl stays after being humiliated to prove a point, and discovers she kinda likes wrestling.

Rival girl is continuously angry because her rival isn't coming back and that winning by default is a shitty thing to do. She doesn't just want to beat her. No, she wants to gloat over that shit, rub her face in it and lord it over her so there is no question in anyone's mind who the greatest of idols really is.

So she decides to become a 'wrestling assassin' in the hopes that she will be able to take down her old rival in the wrestling match, to force her to end her wrestling career, so that she can take her back to the idol stage and proceed to open up a can of whoop-ass on her there too.

Now if you've been following this blog at all, you will of course understand that everything I have just said in the last three paragraphs is a hell of a lot better than what's actually being shown. These guys couldn't make a leper colony with a cure-all-prize-themed Hunger Games seem interesting. Much less this show's plot.

Anyhow, Elena unmasks herself in a wonderful thing where they just play the last thirty seconds of the last episode before the opening credits, because that whole dramatic tension thing. Which would exist if this show wasn't a flaming paper bag of dogshit sitting upon your doorstep. Yeah, it's really that juvenile.

I mean christ, how lazy do you have to be to take the effort to create a 3D version of an arena that will appear in every single episode?! Including the audience which only sometimes is 3D? When in the end, all they're actually doing is just making more work for themselves considering how often they tend to recycle their footage?!

All I'm saying is, they could've saved themselves a few thousands dollars by not delegating their actual staff to animating a hundred shitty people in a crowd that only exist to clap. Alternatively, they could've chosen not to hire animators off of YouTube that are probably still in or are right out of high school. But whatever. I'm going off on another tangent so let's just get this piece of crap out of my sight.

Alright, the episode finally begins and the entire stadium is so shocked, they forget to remember they aren't just static two-dimensional objects that never move. I like to think the staff was so shocked, they simply forgot to animate anything at all.

Wait, her eyes are moving slightly. I think. Are they?

This continues on, and on, and on. After over a full minute of suffering nothing but pans across still images and people standing as if they are literally just drawings on paper does the crew remember something has to actually happen, and Sakura is all "what the hell Red, you got what you wanted why you gotta be here?"

I'm going to destroy everything you love because I'm
that much of an embittered bitch.

Then she continues to say she's going to reveal Sakura's true feelings, because obviously if she wins that means she wants to keep wrestling, and if she loses than she is a pathetic washed-up has-been loser that should die crying under her desk. Oh, and if she wins then she has to cut her ties with Sweet Diva.

... uh, is it just me, or... does it seem like Elena may not exactly be living in a placed called 'reality'? Because I'm fairly sure that after a year and a half, Sakura's coming back to being an idol is simply not gonna happen.

Then the bell rings and Elena is all charging against an endless expanse of an arena that has suddenly grown so large that she cannot cross it after ten straight seconds of charging at her opponent.

That's not even an exaggeration. If anything, I'm being kind and ignoring the time the camera was focused elsewhere. So Elena runs up and grabs her hatepal in a loving choke hold, and the crowd goes wild. Did you know this show is entirely about close-ups of faces or hands? Because it pretty much is now. Remember all that screaming you missed? Well it's back again. Boston Crabs too.

Oh, also up in the box with that one blonde chick who is all big evil end boss bitchface is getting told about how this girl all showed up after Sakura announced she was gonna beat the shit outta Rio all that time back. Because wah wah it was all her fault that this shit happened and they try to portray her as a sympathetic character who takes the time out of her idol career to become pro wrestler enough to beat the shit out of her supposed friend.

Cue dramatic piano music and Sakura screaming on end for minutes and minutes. Also lots of panting. Body slams, weird close-ups of various faces and bodyparts, and more screaming. Then Rio is all like "man she's pretty good actually, I dont' think Sakura is just leading us on here", and Sakura continues to cry and get rope breaks only to be slammed down more and more.

This show is all about torture. And I'm not talking about the shit Sakura is enduring, I'm talking about the shit I'm forcing myself to watch here. If this show isn't banned in at least six countries, I will be sorely disappointed. Also, more flashback sequences because they really have no money left for their budget. Seriously, if they were on a shoe-string now, they are straight up resorting to eating the chewing gum left under their desks for sustenance at this point.

All to bring you the occasional decently-animated sequence here and there, but it's all lost in the bullshit that is this show.

Finally, Misaki is all like "the hell are you doing, are you even gonna fight or what?" and Sakura's like "but she's my friiiiiend" and she's like "f**k that bitch she's playing at being a pro wrassler are you not even gonna treat her like one?"

This is how they show you how truly dramatic this
particular scene happens to be.

Then Misaki is all "you gonna be the strongest in the world or what?" so she runs out and starts trying to beat the shit out of Red. Which doesn't exactly go as planned, and it doesn't take long before they just start changing up the rules, by making use of 'banned rules in Berserk rings due to causing permanent tendon damage'.

Seriously guys, stop trying to hype your own show by utilizing logic that would have a hard time flying even in the WWF's world. Those guys are all about ridiculous but you know how much of that crap is scripted. This? They're trying to play this as if it's a straight thing and it could be nothing further from the truth.

More screaming. In fact, Sakura is now beginning to scream so hard her voice is no longer matching up with those close-ups of her mouth. You read that right folks. Her mouth is shown as being closed mid blood-curdling scream of agony. Twice.

Quality checker, clearly nobody checks your work.

More screams and we get a commercial break early in the show. What is this? Anyways when we return from that her leg has been horribly injured but she's not giving up so easily, and instead elects to more torture by lots of screaming and still frames where the characters just hover between two or three frames of animation. Like always, Sakura is all 'never gonna give up' and her opponent is all 'give up' and we have the exact same scene played out in the last ten episodes as she actually somehow manages to scream louder than ever before.

I'm curious, does that direction also happen to be the same
place where this show is going?

Now the newbie is all calling out for her to get to the rope, and Elena is all refusing to adhere to rope breaks, and Sakura leaves the ring, but not before her good ol' pal decides to leap out of the ring and continue to beat the shit out of her, bending and twisting her whichever way pleases her because to hell with the rules, right? She's wanted to do this for a long time.

Gee, guess there's no escape here, and the newcomer isn't allowed to get involved, because they have 20 seconds to fight outside of the ring. Eventually Elena gets up and returns to the ring, and Sakura needs to get back in to resume the fight, but not before Misaki is like "you know she's gonna go for you right as soon as you get in there".

So what's she do? Gets put in the exact same move for the third time in a row.

Are you tired of hearing "Give up?!" "No!" "Give up?!" "No!" yet? I sure hope you're not because that's exactly what you're getting a lot more of. Now Elena is afraid of hurting her friend and Sakura is all like "WHATEVA WHATEVA I DO WHAT I WANT" and gets the rope once again. Now Elena is shaken, and the crowd is going nuts because these two are giving the guys an exiting match between two pro wrestler idols. But now the whole crowd is going wild over Sakura, because f**k this new bitch. Oh, and her manager shows up to watch and is utterly horrified. Then there's some flashbacks that would make sense if I cared more about the show to remember whatever plot they've tried to talk to us about in the last two episodes, and Sakura is all "welp, last chance, better not screw this up like everything else" and they move closer together. Elena moves in to grab and pins Elena down, but the ref is so shocked she forgets to do her goddamned job.

So when Elena should've lost the match, she wriggles loose because the referee here is a pile of shit. I'm sure there's a sports joke here somewhere...

And if that had happened we couldn't force you to look
at young girl ass for the next six minutes.

Now we get to see Sakura beating the shit out of her friend, where their roles are now reversed, and she's the one in the crabs from Boston and all that shit. Lots of screaming, because that's what this show has more of than your typical shonen anime, and both girls are getting tired. But Sakura's not gonna let up because she's got to do that thing where she takes someone's moves and rubs it in their faces.

Cue the "Give up?" "No!" lines.

Oh, and because somebody has to narrate this shit, that world champ and her buddy Juri are like "man, since she had to lead this secret life she has no actual wrestling experience and therefore isn't used to this" despite, I dunno, having been personally trained by you or something? One might thing that might count for oh wait no I forgot the caliber of the show we are dealing with here.

Sakura goes for another pin, fails, starts jumping around and pinning again, and their boobs just want to touch at every given opportunity, and Sakura finally goes in for the kill move, and double backflip kicks the shit out of Elena who just barely manages to survive. But now they have sudden bursts of energy that let them do things like ignore their injuries and just continue throwing one another around.

With every single static image they can come up with, of course.

There's kicking, there's yelling, there's crotch shots and countdowns and boobs flopping galore, and finally Sakura gets her opponent in- wait what.

How do you cut from this...

And then almost immediately go to this less than
a full second later?!?!

Man they just do not give any shits. Crowd is going nuts and then Sakura goes in for the kill but Elena switches it around and performs the "Juri Crush" and starts choking the shit out of Sakura. More crotches wriggling around, and static images of the crowd cheering for one or the other. Meanwhile, the manager of Sweet Diva is watching, probably realizing just what a horrible idea this was for her company, considering all the insurance they are likely going to have to float after all this shit.

Not to mention the bad press considering one of their top idols is attempting to publicly murder the other right now. So yeah, no biggie.

Now Sakura is being choked like crazy but she refuses to give, and winds up passing out because that's the kind of thing that happens when your opponent is literally attempting to choke the life out of you.

I can only hope this show ends tragically. It would
 only be the best thing that could happen to it.

Moe screams and Elena keeps choking her and the episode ends.

Next episode: Sakura dies, and this show finally f***ing ends.

I am so looking forward to it being over. Like you have no idea. Like, Free!? That shit I was like "at least they are trying", and at least that show had good animation. This has zero saving grace to it.

Next week. One more episode.

ONE MORE GODDAMN EPISODE OF THIS.