Gunparade March Episode 08 - In April, She will... - With Your Musket, Fife, And Drum

Boy am I glad I didn't make any wildly inaccurate promises that were hopelessly optimistic in nature earlier this week. It's been a hell of a summer so far.

So since I've been having a surplus of positivity in my life, this seems like a great time to kick back and subject myself to more Gunparade.

My criticisms of this show are varied in nature. I can see how this could have been a legitimately good show, but it winds up falling short because, presumably, it requires you to understand the source material. Also it is just sub-par in almost every way imaginable. So that makes it the perfect way to just drop a metaphorical hammer on my toe in terms of my overall pleasedness.

I think I should start the show before I say anything else bizarre. Yes. Let's do that.

Shitty intros. Characters I don't care about. An intro song so dull it couldn't cut butter. Yep, this is Gunparade March alright.

We begin the episode in April, where Springtime for Hitler has arrived. Kids are singing and stuff and I gues all the students are singing about... stuff? Like baseball?

I feel like this perfectly encapsulates the entire series.

Today's episode is bound to be... special.

And I do mean special.

So, a little bit of context. Today's title, at least the English title, is a lyrical reference to an old colonial folk song. It's about a woman who wants to marry a soldier but he refuses for a variety of reasons. Doesn't stop him from taking the gifts, of course, like a true American Prick.

Anyways, we learn that today, the kids are all playing baseball, because what this show really eneded was yet another filler episode.

Also it needed my favorite girl getting hit on the head with a baseball.

Who the f**k thought it was a great idea to have her as
the outfielder anyways?!

Three minutes in and already someone is on the brink of death. Then bitchgirl is like "you dweeb get her to the nurse" and mainbro picks her up and takes her over which impresses everyone, and then we find out the girl later has amnesia because she got hit in the head.

Cue the whole blushing about being carried by a dude being talked about in a flashback while Nonomi still has no idea what's going on.

That's kind of harsh. And you're her friend? Bitch.

After the girls razz him for a bit, he decides to wander off. The class bell rings, and oh noes, someone done left dude a letter in his box so he opens it up.

Holy christ is this happening? Oh god. This is happening.

Turns out the letter is from some girl in another class who somehow ninja'd her way in and gave him this letter in his shoe box. She wanted to tell him a thing, but wasn't sure how to tell him, but decided to just say it?

Also Duo Hamwell decided to read it over his shoulder.
Aloud. Just because.

Then the entire class finds out that he got probably a love letter and it's up to the local casanova to give him the scoop on who this girl is.

Seriously does nobody find it creepy that he literally has a page in his little book for every girl? I mean seriously.

Everyone is, for some reason, completely shocked.

Seriously why is that one on the left such a bitch?

Also, they have some really f***ing terrible shots in this episode. Just... f***ing horrendous.

Like this little gem. My god.

All the boys want to read his letter, all the girls talk about whether the letter was real or a prank, and the ice princess is like "yeah I'm leaving now". But then that girl who sent the letter shows up and is all "DID YOU READ MY LETTER?!"

Apropo of nothing, she just casually blurts this out.

Sure is a great thing I'm watching  a show about giant machines punching aliens in the face.

Sure is great.

A couple seconds later the girl dashes out before anyone can say anything and hugs her friends and is like I DID A THING and now suddenly he's getting gifts in his locker and a fan club following him while the camera keeps looking at the girl who really doesn't care about him at all.

Oh yeah, and if your eardrums haven't ruptured and started bleeding from the INCREDIBLY REPETITIVE DRUM AND BRASS MILITARY BEAT, THEN PLEASE BY ALL MEANS CONTINUE TO LISTEN TO IT. FOR THE NEXT. FIVE. YEARS. BECAUSE THAT FIVE SECOND LOOP IS ALL YOU EVER WANTED TO HEAR IN YOUR GODDAMNED LIFE. ITS ALL. THAT IS THE ONLY MUSIC YOU WILL EVER NEED. THAT STUPID F***ING MONTAGE CLIP. IT IS THE PINNACLE OF MUSIC. THAT FIVE SECONDS IS ABSOLUTE PERFECTION WHICH MUST BE THE EXPLANATION AS TO WHY THE F**K THEY CONTINUE TO USE IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN LIKE THE GODDAMNED SONG THAT NEVER F***ING ENDS!!!!

*breathes deeply for a few seconds*

I'm okay. Really. I mean it. I'm totally not about to go murder some small woodland animal in the hopes that it appeases whatever local deity I have angered to be subjected to this. Honest.

Anyways mainbro pulls aside his partner in crime to discuss some stuff about tomorrow's training. He asks what they're supposed to do, and she's like "dunno" and walks off.

Well. That escalated quickly.

Now it is night and the guys are all grilling dude to see what he's gonna do about this girl situation and he's like 'meh I dunno' and he gets called out to say that he doesn't plan on going out with her, and he's all not wanting to put her down I guess so it's time for love lessons from the guy who is an expert in all things regarding lo-

.... I need an adult.

His advice: If you don't want to turn a girl down, then make her hate your ass.

Yeah, because that can never in any way backfire.

So his brilliant plan? Call your mother 'mommy'. Because girls hate momma's boys.

Yet not nearly as much damage as this show has done to my
psychological state.

His other ideas are really not that great. Which makes Duo Hamface go 'dude just be all 'I like some other girl'' and then everybody got really f***ing quiet.

So what will he do? Then he remembers all that shit that happened in the winter and can't sleep so he looks across the way out of his window to that girl's room who hates him, and we immediately jump back into training the next day because we need our quota of fake aliens being killed to be met.

Also the instructors are noticing those two are having 'issues' because of 'reasons' and figure it's probably related to 'that girl situation'. What's noteworthy of course is that it's ice queen's scores that are dropping for some reason. Oh the noes she probably passively-aggressively hates him. How very out of the blue this is, it's not like we haven't had those hints dropped on us at all by the tsundere at all since day f***ing one.

Then training ends and that girl just somehow sneaks into the training room.

Seriously what the f**k?! Why would you let a civilian into your training room? WHO THE F**K IS IN CHARGE OF THIS PLACE?!

Also this is totally the face of someone who wants the attention
you keep forcing upon them.

Hell everyone else seems kind of shocked about the exchange. But seriously how did she get in there?

She asks him to call her by her name, and then wants to know what he's doing on Sunday maybe they can see a movie and have fun and get some coffee and have some dinner and TOTES BANG OR SOMETH-

Ahem. Dun. Dun. Dun?

Immediately the girl goes off the friggin' rails demanding to know who this other girl is, presumably not so she can ensure said girl gets stabbed in her sleep.

Yeah this doesn't scream NOTICE ME SEMPAI!!! at all.

He tries to evade the question but creepy stalker chick is like "ITS THAT GIRL YOU WERE JUST TRAINING WITH HUH" and she's all "F**K that who wants that dork go away" and storms off in a huff and everyone feels awkward because man she is just the worst liar ever and BOY AM I GLAD I AM WATCHING A SHOW ABOUT GIANT ALIENS INVADING OUR PLANET AREN'T YOU?

Please tell me this is the end of the episode.

Enter the commercial break.

Now we see a little girl washing clothes and we find the girls talking about that dude going on a date despite having clearly turned the girl down.

The girls continue to talk about shit within earshot of the ice queen and they totally aren't going to convince her to crash the date at all or whatever. They talk about how dude must really have someone he likes that isn't creepy stalker girl but whoever could it be it's probably totally that girl sitting over there because dude totes blushed and that makes her mad and winds up dumping half a box of detergent into her already washed laundry.

Yep. That's a joke. That fell flat because of the complete lack of empathy for any of the characters in this show.

So the girls talk to some other girls about what's going on between those two and if there's really a thing going on with the pilots but nobody else is interested in their bullshit but now we hear about the time they were alone over Christmas because of that shit.

Truly, you are absolutely, without any shadow of a doubt,
the best thing about this show, my little angel.

Also she doesn't know what couples do underneath the mistletoe ha ha audience laugh track and cue the scene transition.

We're now in ice queen's room where she's trying to read but keeps flashing back to that winter thing, and she overhears the guys outside yelling about how bro never showed up to his own date that he never wanted to go to in the first place.

Cue her immediately looking over at that goddamn photo and SERIOUSLY STOP WITH THE FAKE BULLSHIT TENSION ALREADY, THIS IS THE STUPIDEST GODDAMN THING IN THE WORLD.

WE GET IT. WE KNOW HE LOOKS LIKE THE GUY.
JESUS. JUST F***ING COMMIT INSTEAD OF CUTTING
OFF HIS HEAD ALL THE F***ING TIME.

More baseball. More people playing baseball. Then team pilot partners go to get bats in the shed or whatever while talking about how... uh... he's... maybe getting to know some other girl or whatever?

Ignore the fact that the crazy girl is holding two bats.

But he tells her straight up he never went on the date because reasons, but he just sorta walked around town and had dinner and stuff by himself because he didn't want to hang around?

Uh. What?

Then he turns around and is all 'uh what the hell was that' and she's like 'uh well' and I'm like JUST SAY NOTICE ME SEMPAI ALREADY AND GET IT OVER WITH GOOD GOD.

They stare into one another's eyes for a goddamned eternity while the shittiest violin plays, and then some lady runs in looking for a chalk machine.

"I'm glad we had this moment." "Yeah. Sure."

BETTER HURRY KIDS GAME GONNA START OFF I GO.

Then they look down at the ground awkwardly and baseball commences.

She's all worrying about his 'cold' which is why he couldn't
make it to the 'date' yesterday. Boy.

The boys kind of chuckle about how he covered his ass with a crappy story and Shibamura walks off and that girl won't shut up about how worried she is about him.

Now we really do commence the game. Also the two most athletic guys are banned from playing in this game because game balance issues or whatever, oh look who is up to bat.

I am so excited I am thinking about whether I will trim
my toe nails after this or not. So riveting.

Ball is pitched, and knocked out into the outfield where it bashes the girl who has been trying to win his heart this entire time.

This was better when it was my favorite girl.

Exactly like last time Shibamura is all "TAKE HER TO THE THING" and Nanami is like "GET HER TO THE THING" and so he once more hauls a girl up and we find out she's been faking this entire time because NOTICE ME SEMPAI.

So he gets her to the nurse's office and lays her down and she immediately tackles him the second his back gets turned.

Yeah.

She all hugs him and shit and is like "I AM GOING TO PUT IT INTO YOUR POOPER."

Maybe not but that joke was too good to pass up with an
image like this one.

BUT THEN ALARMS. OH NO. TIME TO RUN. He throws her off and runs out because GOTTA SAVE THE WORLD and then she's like "damn getting hit by a baseball f***ing hurts" and then her friends show up and are like "SO DID YOU KISS OR WHAT?! DETAILS!" and... god I want to kill myself watching this. It's so f***ing bad.

Yeah like you actually care about him or what he's thinking.

Anyways her friends go 'okay but seriously like, what the hell is wrong with you that dude is seriously a dweeb'. Her big thing is that she likes pilots and they're just wondering why she chose this pilot in particular when there are clearly others who would probably be more receptive to her, er, 'charms' as it were.

You can tell they are the best of friends.

So we find out what she sees in him. It's that he's the main character of the show and totally amazing at everything he ever does, period. The end.

Facepalming. So. Hard. Right now.

We find out the game was declared a victory by default due to THE OTHER TEAM LEAVING IN THE FIRST INNING and then the pilots came back having trashed their machine because, uh, reasons?

The the wrench wenches are all "GUESS WHO GETS TO HELP US FIX THIS SHIT" and hands the happy couple some tools, and then that one girl winds up coming back into the hangar to check on her dearly beloved.

SERIOUSLY. WHO THE F**K IS IN CHARGE OF SECURITY AROUND HERE. IT'S LIKE THERE IS A GODDAMN REVOLVING DOOR FOR ALL OF THESE MILITARY SECRETS OR SOME SHIT.

You could die in a fire. Or drown in some acid. Either or.

She pulls the SEMPAI NOTICE ME thing again and he's like "look kid, I'm a pilot and I got shit I gotta deal with and I doubt this will work" and she's all "BUT I LURVE YOU BECAUSE OF THAT SHIT YOU DID LAST YEAR AT THAT ONE BATTLE" and everyone's like 'wait wut'.

Of course it was all just a comical misunderstanding!
... kill me please.

Turns out this was all just one big mix up. Oh no. Her entire character just sort of deflates, and she goes running off and asks everyone to forget this entire thing ever even happened. Everyone laughs. Even Shibamura. Nonomi calls her on the laughing thing and all the girls are like "PYOHOHOHOHO" and "FUFUFUFU" and more laughing happens and the episode finally f***ing ends.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go away before I have a f***ing aneurysm over how goddamned f***ing terrible this f***ing show is.