The Most Ass Backwards Way To Finally Watch Sailor Victory

Saw a VHS cover for an anime called graduation. It was an early lazy morning, so I figured I'd give it a watch. All I had to go on was the art, it seemed cozy, perfect fit for the time I found myself in. What this was is graduation M, aka the male version, and a day long deep dive into a series that doesn't feel like one. It's more of a collection of OVAs, stitched together by threads of "AU" "Boy/Girl version" "When they're older" "Oh shit it has video games" and "I don't know what this has to do with the other ones." But, everything has a beginning and we start with M.

The best point of comparison I can give this is legitimately the Tokimeki Memorial OVA I covered in "Some OVAs I've Been watching". Maybe at this point this is a genre of anime and I'm sold on it. I guess you could call it Iyaskikei, but more in an urban environment. Eitherway, I quite liked it. It doesn't hit as much on the theme of graduation, that's a consequence of being part of this series. It focuses more on the main group coming together (against their will) to put on a play because the head of their school threatens to starve them to death. Despite that last sentence, it's a cozy time of somber color pallets, beautiful shots of sunset lit earth, dudes living their lives. I enjoyed the anime immensely for that stuff.

It's pretty interesting that this is how most of the first episode goes. Our group of boys eat breakfast, they hang out. It's pretty stereotypical, but they're a lot of fun to watch as a unit. The writer did a good job making the friend group believable, giving us the feeling like we're peeking in on a lived in dynamic. That's the only thing Grad M really has going for it. There's not a lot of animation to go around, the actual story is paper thin (but passable), there's nothing else to really note. Heck, even the kinda BL angle they go for isn't really noteworthy. It's pretty obvious the cute lil' guy is in love with the sporty motorcycle guy. It even feels like from little interaction, that the glasses dude and sporty dude could be boyfriends. The show let's it exist, there's one guy who literally cross-dresses to advertise women's clothing and his friends are chill. Cross-dressing isn't something he has to hide, even when the head of the school mentions it no one is weirded out. For how small these moments are, everything is passable from a writing standpoint. Even if I'd say it's niche, it has points for recommendation and return. The dudes are the reason why I'd recommend this, as long as hopes don't get too high.

My personal favorite scene of the guys is the lil' one having trouble getting through an old game and not being able to save. Rock on, dude. My other favorite scene is when he's getting food for breakfast and instead of handing him a tray it just boops into existance piece by piece. Good shit.

The villain plot is almost a parody. To a point I'd call it adorable kinda, but at the same time it's so goofily evil. I love it. The head of the school wants to put on a play and he decides to round up our entire friend group to be the stars. You know how in magical girl anime and others like it, they'll cut away to the bad guys in a dark room discussing the plot? They do that here... to make a highschool play. He lures two of the guys to speak with him with the promise of food. The others go to be bros. They're told about the play and are like "fuck off", so the bad guy trap doors them into a cellar until they agree. The second episode is about them putting on the play.

Episode 2: Isn't as visually or comfy as episode one. They're trapped in a box for almost the first ten minutes, next they're locked in their dorm studying. It's still fun, this sense of gloom began hanging over me, especially with that beginning. This thing doesn't have an english TV tropes page, but it does have an ANN and MAL. I decided to check to see how many eps there are and mal told me there was questionable content. They didn't expand on what, but I started to get a bit worried the bad guy was gonna start doing some stereotypical "relations" that can happen in BL. Unless I watched the most satisfying slickest edited cut in the world or/and the writers wrote sex scenes so disconnected to the plot you can't tell they were ever meant to be there, there's none of that. I think the questionable content might come from the model guy, as he seems to be dealing with anorexia. It's not played for laughs, but 'normalized' in the context of his friends just being fine with it. "Oh it's our bud, he doesn't eat. I'll eat your food." That, and maybe entrapping the dudes and forcing them against their will to star in an adaptation of little women or they die I think. (I'm not sure the bad guy was gonna feed them.) Oh yeah, I didn't mention that's the play they're doing. LMFAO. That's not a joke. They even have shirts with the logo of little women on it while they're practicing. It's great.

So they practice for a bit, the main sporty guy is like "fuck this" and leaves. Old anime really loves their motorcycles while driving on the highway shots. Seriously, it's one of the little things that just keeps appearing. I don't even like driving, but I appreciate this. Anyway, he remembers all the fun times he had, gets a note asking him to come back and they do the show. Also we get cucked, we don't see the performance. (Boo.) That's pretty much it. A nice, quaint time.

Originally I was watching this for probably the inevitable "OVAs I've been watching 3". Of course, this is a bit long to fit in with that series. (and was longer, but I didn't care for my side tracks.) Since I was already curious to watch the girl one, why not just talk about it too... and then I found out there's 3 more OVA series. A sequel, another thing, and an AU- WHICH IS SAILOR VICTORY. I'd see the anime abandon review, it had been on my list to watch for years in the form of "I'll get around to it" And boy, did I pick the most ass backwards way to watch this anime.

Graduation (Chick ver):

I don't like it as much as the boy version. It has different priorities, mainly to separate the girls as they think about their lives. It's even closer to the Tokimeki Memorial anime than M. Though nice and sweet, I'd recommend the boys version more, as there's more going on with them, even considering how light that story is. There's not even a weird baddie this time, the main plot is the group of girls are going to a hot spring, in their personal time they're trying to figure out what they're going to do with their lives. Their stupid friend takes a shit and misses the train and the motorcycle girl has to find her. Oh yeah, by the way, the motorcycle girl is pretty cool, sad she didn't get to do more stuff. The other girls are pretty mid, but nice. My favorite part was towards the end with the art direction. I'm a sucker for a pretty sunset and the dumb girl has a nice conversation with the old guy who keeps the station clean under one. He talks about receiving letters from random train passengers he met and his views on life, it's pretty heartwarming. It's sweet just to have a nice person with a lot of love to give share their experience and it's the part of that episode that has stuck just on mood alone.

Ep 2- I liked it better than the first. Hits those softer feelings like the old man scene in episode one. It really showed off how much these girls care for each other. One of them is thinking about getting married to some CEO's son (she hasn't met yet) and the others decide to meet him to see what he's like. Pretty cool friend shit. Hell, the guy is pretty cool too, talking with her and mentioning how he was in the same place when he was young. The age gap aside, in most of these stories he'd be a creep or mean to her. Or pretending to give a shit but really wanting to push her to him. He seems to care about not a girl he's gonna marry, but another person and what they want to do with their lives. That's a nice way to go about it. (She does reject his proposal in the end.) Like the name suggests, they all graduate and decide to go forward with what they want, even the ones who were going to stay behind to care for their family's business. I feel like talking about it too much would take the fun out of watching, but everyone receives good treatment to their respective arc. Though I think the boy version is more fun, this version has a better plot. It's more of that Tokimeki Memorial anime with more focus on characters with having way less of them to deal with.

Marriage:

Is a sequel to both M and G. But here's the kicker: According to ANN, Grad M came out in 99 and Marriage came out in 96. Which means that they retroactively took the dudes from this and made that version. Which is so funny cause they made them all gay when they come from the most milquetoast heterosexual anime of all time. Look, I've never mentioned who's in the Neon Romance acceptance club, and that's only my business nor is it relevant. We (me) at Neon Industries do not discriminate when it comes to sharing love, as long as no one is getting hurt. Using the term heterosexual is just a description, not a bashing, or even an opinion. That's what this one is about. That being said, I'd say it's actually offensive to heterosexuals, but I'm going to take a step further and just say it's offensive to love, because it gets to my point better. The biggest offence about this anime is that it's fucking boring to the point where I wonder if the writer wrote it like this on purpose to display the boringness of adult office romance. If he did, I'm sorry for what I'm going to write and you are a master of your craft.

The first episode starts out with it seeming like all these bitches (the guys and gals) work in the same office. One of the gals has a crush on a guy, another guy has a crush on her. BlHA BLHA BLHA. Then our gals get together and all they talk about is their dating lives. Every. Single. Scene. Imagine having a TV crew film someone all day for like a week and the only footage they keep is when romance comes up, and everyone happens to talk about it a lot. Every scene is about this group wondering if they'll ever get laid in the most PG little girl media way possible. There's this one scene early in the first ep where one of the guys decides to ask two of the girls (platonically) to dinner cuz he's trying to be a bro. The whole thing is the girls being like "do u have a crush on anyone?" This is the whole show. The guys don't get much better treatment, they're not even human. They don't want a romantic partner, they want a flesh thing to XXXXX. Honestly, this is an arthouse film, even if on accident. A portrayal of how society forces the idea that people need to be in specific relationships and how being in cramped, sterile, boxes created by the corporate machine destroys the individual, producing good little robots that have little to no unique thoughts outside of the script even when they're not on the clock. This showcase is beautiful, but isn't entertaining. You kinda have to watch this one to fully appreciate its boringness, but it's not worth it.

Actually, there's one entertaining part in the worst of the ways. You know what they decide to do? Stop everything for a middle segment to have a "seminar" about the dating habits of men and women. Such as what each look for in a partner. "Can marriage through a service agent be considered an arranged marriage or a free-will marriage." They have presentation slides with little graphs because these things we call the "main love interests" can't exist outside of aesthetics of how they put food on themselves. (Since they have no family. You know, them being single is what the anime is about.) This part feels so slimey and puts into perspective the fuck is wrong with this whole thing. To this show, getting married is a thing you do cuz it's a thing to do. These bitches treat getting married like it's some right. Another guy in the romance board meeting says: "her and I don't share any interests but I like her...". Ok? Then move on! These things are robots with the base human instinct to fuck. That is all. It's a tragedy, especially because these girls (and dudes, even with the release schedule) had nice personalities in their youth. Now they've been sucked dry. Disgusting. They deserved better.

I guess I shouldn't even be angry, the thing is called marriage. My guess is the thing is supposed to be cute, but given on it's own merits and where it came from, this is a sad tale of not two people celebrating love, but a group of people jamming themselves into a box because a person they see is "pretty and me cave man me like fuck." This premise could have worked if the characters were in different stages of their lives and all viewed/talked about romance differently. Maybe focus on the brown haired girl being a little juvenile with her crush, but it's cute cause it's just her thing. Her buds might have their own relationship problems, but they all handle it differently. The problem isn't the focus on office workers participating in regular society, it's the way they're treated as people. Or really, the lack of individual treatment. These characters are strong enough to not have that happen. Anyway, if you rewrite a show because you have massive problems with it you just want to (and should) go watch something else. I decided it wasn't worth seeking out the second episode and bitching about it. This show is so generic I could probably write the ending. I recommend skipping this one. Like please do not think it's so bad it's good just because I had some over the top wording her.

Tanjo Debut:

It's apparently connected to this series, but I'm not completely sure how besides the themes of romance? Either way this is better than marriage. Following a different cast of high schooler chicks, the first episode is about the main character falling in love with the guy at the burger shop and how she handles finding out he has a gf. I'm kinda surprised how much I liked this. First of all, it's got this unique look to it. The colors almost feel like they're from MSPaint. Everything's a little wonky, but it's cool. I also like how the story is centered around the burger shop. This chick won't stop making her friends get burgers and fries to see her guy. What they do with the plot isn't anything revolutionary, but I think could have been handled worse. They don't make his gf to be a bad person. Our main character is sad about it, a bit dramatic too, but still treats this girl well and moves on instead of getting into the business of misery. I don't want to say refreshing but it is nice. Another thing like it is they designed the burger guy to be a normal looking dude. He's not a GigaChad, he's not the captain of the football team, just a dude. The priorities was a simple story about a girl going through a rejection and it all pays off well for the overall tone of the tale. I wouldn't call this cozy, but I'd say a pleasant experience. I really like the transitions. Love it when anime do a little extra in that front.

btw peep those promo posters. At least one of the girls always has some wonk face going on. v good shit, very good.

Ep 2- Is an alternate timeline. Burger store guy is nowhere to be found, all the girls have been friends since childhood, and another character has a completely different role, but that'd be spoiling the ending. Basically it's summer vacation and the 3 friends have a time capsule they're supposed to open that day. They do and discover they've repressed memories of a forth friend, and try to find out more about her. It was a fine watch, though it isn't kooky like the first, fun like Grad M, or aesthetically pleasing like regular Graduation. It was cute. I had a fun time watching it, even if I think the ending is a bit quick and not as impactful as I think it was meant to be.

I'm really not sure how this relates to the rest of these properties. The characters in the other ones are the same people, even in alternate universes. Taking a look at the ANN it seems like different people worked on different stuff. (And that's another reason the series is all over the place.) Hell, I thought this thing was gonna be about these girls becoming idols. They even have idol outfits in the promo and the theme song. Why are both episodes so different? At some point, I might need to seek these answers out, because even though I have the least to say about this part of the franchise, it's the most interesting to me at least. But, that's for another day.

Sailor Victory:

It's a spin off where the girls of Grad have mecha and fight crime with them. (and also try to keep secret identities, pretty poorly.) If you are a Mecha Otaku, you've seen it. If you're getting into it I think other stuff is better, but it's worth a watch. It's fine. Likeable, but doesn't do much for me and I wouldn't rewatch it without a big reason. Still, it's nice to have it crossed off the arbitrary list. If I'm honest, I think watching it in the way I have, the rest of the series first, actually made me appreciate Victory a bit more than I would have. Despite my problems with these things there's a lot of different hands trying a lot of different crafts. These shows are all over the place, the connection is pretty weak between some, but they're all under the same umbrella even if it doesn't feel like there's a connection besides characters. Seeing how they got to Victory, seeing these characters from different better and worse perspectives, hits home with what (I think) they wanted to do with this one. They took this group of heroines and made a remembered anime from a completely different genre out of it. Seeing the history is a cooler way to watch it then just watching the Victory alone, for my viewing experience.

END THOUGHTS:

Oh yeah, apparently this franchise started out as a video game. I peeped some footage on youtube, I think the art is beautiful. They seem like simulation games, like princess maker if I had to take a guess. If you're into older games, I'd say give em' a peep. I'm not covering them here, I can't read them except for one.