Infinite Stratos (IS)

Seriously, this has so got to stop, Japan. Just stop it. I'm not mad... yet. I'm getting there, but if you promise to stop making below average harem anime based upon the same goddamn formula that you've been using all the way back since the original Tenchi Muyo came out over 20 years ago then I'll forgive you. Now let me make this perfectly clear, if you DON'T stop, I will fucking convince President Obama to drop another goddamn nuke on you.

Oh, he'll do it. He'll do it once I show him over 150 anime series in a row in which a wussy, stupid, incredibly naive boy falls into a nest of cute to hot girls who all want to jump his bones for NO GODDAMN REASON AT ALL, but he's too goddamn retarded to notice, and therefore keeps accidentally stringing them all along without ever picking ONE of them to give him a blumpkin over all the others. EVER. Obama'll be like, "Goddamn, homie! You mean you've been watching this same repeating shit for over 20 fucking years?! Fuck that! This ends NOW! Skadooooosh!" He'd say that last bit as he hit the red button.

In case you were too dense to figure it out (like the protagonists in all these shitty shows in question), Infinite Stratos is indeed just another subpar harem show (with 5 chicks throwing their premoistened panties at our main character in this soulless romp), this time taking place amid a specialty school for mecha fighting suit pilots... Again. Let me repeat, there is NOTHING new here: the characters have all been recycled from much better (and some worse) shows that have come before; the plot is a paint by numbers story that has no drama, no tension, and nothing that really holds your attention at all unless you're a total newbie and this is your very first anime program EVER. Even the designs are lame and boring and are taken directly from shitty mecha shows in the mid 90s to early 2000s (COUGH Vandread COUGH)... Except here the mecha artists have bits on every Infinite Stratos unit that for some reason aren't attached to anything else and fucking hover a foot away from any part of the rest of the exoskeleton frame — the designs don't even make any sense in their own fucking universe! Ugh, and don't get me started on the so-called "science" of the show. I will shoot somebody. Preferably the original author of the books that inspired this garbage.

"Okay," you wonder like a 4 year-old child questioningly prodding his unmoving dog in the gutter with his shoe, after the animal was just fucking nailed by a dump truck doing 60mph, "so what is this show really about? Specifically, I mean."

Oooooh, thank Christ you threw in that "specifically" because I had just gone over its general retread narrative for you already, and if I thought you weren't paying attention I'd get a rubber hose and beat you with it. Okay, so the back story is this: There is some new robotic technology (the Infinite Stratos suit, aka the "IS") in the near-future which was originally created for boring shit like space exploration and deep sea crap, but soon becomes a sport wherein women pilot these exoskeleton mecha suits in battles because I don't know.

Wait, hold on... Why can only women pilot these things?

I don't know.

B-b-but didn't you say that there was a boy who fights in one of these mecha suits? How is that... I mean, how can a teenage boy pilot one of these IS suits if only girls can?

My guess is because HE'S A FLAMING HOMOSEXUAL, or he is in fact a very flat-chested woman. Honestly, I have NEVER seen a hetero boy in the midst of puberty so absolutely un-turned on by being completely surrounded by so many cute and talented girls who want nothing more than to rub genitals together while being hosed down with KY Jelly. But let's get back to the "plot," shall we?

Anyway, so the global powers unite to create an international school (in Japan, of course) where young women can gather and learn to pilot the IS units and learn how to fight and beat the shit out of any opponent in them... You know, in the spirit of unity. Into all this comes the most air-headed protagonist (I refuse to call him a "hero" because heroes are usually, you know, HEROIC) the world has ever seen (one Ichika Orimura), and pretty much on the first day of classes he's got his old childhood friend, Houki, and a British national, Cecilia, trying to grab his cawk all for themselves. Very soon though Ichika has another childhood friend, a girl crossdressing as a boy, and a pirate girl who at first hates him, but who then comes to love him because she must be a lesbian because he's the fruitiest dude ever, all chasing him for his... ummmm, chasing him because.... Ugh, fuck. I guess because HE'S THE ONLY BOY IN THE ENTIRE SCHOOL. That has got to be the only reason. It was either that or go lesbo. It must have been a really difficult decision.

Okay, so in between a ton of boring mecha battles and really pathetically written cat fights, we find out that the United States and Israel have created a new unmanned (well, unwomanned) Infinite Stratos unit, and because we're the two evilest countries in the world the suit goes ape shit and then goes rogue, and it's up to our intrepid group of 15 year-old first-year students (not trained military professionals, because that would be undramatic or make sense or something that would make me not want to park in my garage with the garage door down and the engine pumping out glorious carbon monoxide till my well-earned final sweet release) to take it down before mumble mumble mumble mumble. Ichika and his pathetic group of ladies then unite to destroy the rampaging unit before it blows up an illegal fishing boat, so that they can then all get disappointed by Ichika who is an incredible wanker in the end.

Now, there are SO MANY things that are never explained or even hinted at in this show, but the biggest one of them all is WHY did this anime so completely rip off better shows like Dual: Parallel Trouble Adventure. No, wait, I mean WHY can the Infinite Stratos units only be piloted by women? They're goddamn ROBOTS! Just fucking PROGRAM them to allow men to fly them too! Oh, and the inventor of the IS units is Houki's mentally unstable super-scientist sister (who's so wacky that she wears *SNICKER!* bunny ears! OMGLOL! FMIMA! OMG! LMAO!!!! GUFFAW!), and only SHE can create new IS cores (because the dumbshit scientists of this alternate Earth have never heard of "reverse engineering"), and there are only a total of like 460 IS cores in the world... And they let children use ANY of them?! What the fuck! With only 460 some odd super expensive robots EVER CREATED these things are like the rarest pieces of technology EVER KNOWN TO MAN... And they let how many dozens (if not hundreds) find their way to a school? Think about it, there are thousands of nukes out there, and none of them are under the control of a mentally unstable teen. (Note, I think that ALL teenagers are mentally unstable.)

Let me put it to you this way: There are close to 200 countries in the world, and Houki's sister is supposedly creating new cores and distributing them to everybody somewhat equally... Which would mean if this were true then the biggest countries should only have 2-3 units... Why the FUCK would there even BE a training school in the first place? It'd be like having only 3 fighter jets in the entire US Air Force and saying "Fuck! We should give one of these jets to that hippie school in Japan and let all those teenage girls play around with it and learn to pilot it because they're NEVER going to fucking fly one of these things in the real world if they're not in the armed service or NASA."

Writers, seriously, please think this shit through beyond "we want to see a lot of girls surrounding one gay boy... Hmmmm, how do we do this?.... Oh! All girls school! Oh shoot! The boy... I keep forgetting. Well fuck, we'll just put him in there too. And we'll never explain how he accomplished whatever it was he did to get enrolled there. Whew! That was close. Let's go drinking!"

Okay, so Ichika can't figure out what it means when a girl puts her hand on his crotch, he's piloting a robot that he theoretically shouldn't be able to even move let alone fly and blow shit up with, and then he's forced to take down a homicidal weapon of mass destruction created by two evil countries that's gone berserk... Of COURSE he and his bland harem defeat it without any drama or death, because the writers suck.

Oh, and the harem! If none of these girls sound familiar then you are the most retarded waterhead I never want to meet: there's the big sisterly childhood friend; there's the little sisterly childhood friend; there's the arrogant (but deeply compassionate) blonde gaijin (this time from England, not America. Go fig!); the full of life girl dressing up like a guy (and fooling NOONE... Seriously, only Elizabeth Swan dressing like a sexy sailor man in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was less convincing in drag, and Charles/Charlotte doesn't even try to hide her real voice in Stratos!); and the eye-patch-wearing tsundere girl who learns to love through her interactions with the gay boy in the center of all of this mess. And they ALL degrade themselves by turning into jealous whores whenever one of them gets the advantage over the others and gets to spend an extra minute or two alone with the dopey Ichika (who never seems to care one way or another). Seriously, don't these girls get weekend passes into town or some shore leave? They've got to know that there's more than one extremely effeminate boy in the world? You know what? I don't even... Whatever. I'm done.

But first, did I mention that the animation looks like it was farmed out to cheap Korean studios for 10 out of 12 episodes? Well, it does. And it sucks.

So in the end, what'd I think of Infinite Stratos (IS)? I was originally going to give it a slightly below average rating, but then remembered that shows like Dual actually took this exact same premise and created really fun narratives around it (with likeable characters), and it made me rethink my final grade. Infinite Stratos is much less than it should have been. Its characters suck, the plot is a Mad Libs of retardation and doesn't accomplish even the simplest complete (or compelling) story, and there are plot holes and unanswered questions out the goddamn ass. If you're that in need of a harem show, skip Infinite Stratos and watch the aforementioned Dual, or School Days, or Yosuga No Sora. There really is nothing new or good here.

I find that I must give Infinite Stratos (IS) a 5 out of 105 Points of Hotness and Titties. It isn't "hot," and there's not even any real fan service in it. Ignore it. Even the op and ed songs suck. And if you have already seen it and liked it, then you must be one of those losers who likes ANYTHING if it's animated, or you really haven't seen much anime in your life before now. No, not seeing that much anime ain't no crime, but let this be a wake-up call that this is far from the best of the best out there. Broaden your horizons and talk to me after you've watched at least a couple of dozen series, champ.

I can't believe it! The Japanese have done it! They've perfected cloning (25 years behind me, but still an accomplishment). They've cloned the show Infinite Stratos directly from the previous television series known as Dual: Parallel Adventure, only in the process the main character either became a eunuch or somehow lost all his testosterone. Very sad. But still! What an accomplishment!

True, this anime program is pretty horrid, and isn't very exciting, and has no twists or bends in its plot at all, and you can see how it's going to end after just watching the first 4 minutes of it (including the opening minute and a half song and such)... But wow! Cloning, people! Now maybe the Japs can clone some more dolphins back into the wild after they slaughter thousands of them in that cove every year.

Really, this was pretty terrible. You'd have to have tons of free time to think about wasting it on this blah show. Lord knows I didn't have that much to spare, and I feel totally and completely let down now. There goes 6 hours of my life... Which is a whooooole lot larger a percentage of my remaining time on this mudball we call Earth than the Rossman has left. He can afford it. I'm just pissed now.

I am quite perplexed after watching this Infinite Stratos show. First of all, nothing was "infinite" about this show or its robots at all. They had a time/energy limit... Having a limit technically makes something NONinfinite. Also, what good do floating bits around a mecha unit have when it's made for fighting? How do they stay in place? And why oh why would a fighting mecha (armed with swords, guns, and mecha punches) have the pilot's upper torso — and most importantly his or her head — open to the elements? Absurd! They can't even use the excuse that "it looks cool, that's why" since it did not in fact look any sort of cool. It looked like a 5 year-old child with no understanding of warfare or battle tactics designed these steel pieces of (pardon my Klaxonian) mecha cow shit.

Really now... And on top of that the people in this show were supposed to be the elite of the elite, yet they were nothing but a bunch of whiny teenagers. Teenagers who somehow were allowed to pilot rare multi-billion dollar experimental mecha suits in between fawning over the only boy in their midst, who apparently only had a thing for that one girl when he thought she was a he. My head hurts, and even though I can go back in time and talk myself out of watching this stupid piece of non-entertainment, I will not. I figure 6 hours of my life is a great way to teach myself a lesson. That lesson being "stop watching crappy anime." I only hope I learn from it this time. You would have thought that Saikano would have already driven this point home.

This show is a crap sandwich, and I ate it so that you do not have to, citizens. Rejoice and be glad. And seriously, my friends, stop watching this retreaded poop and they'll stop making it.