Ichigo Mashimaro – Fanservice at its worst

There are bad anime series which simply won’t die. Some might call them pop-culture phenomenons, some might say they changed the industry, I say they are so incredibly boring and uninspiring, that they simply appeal to the braindead 90% of the world population, which find anime like this “soothing”. To those people it doesn’t really matter if it’s an anime or not, a long 6 hour special about a chick wanting to marry some bloke, but is hindered by society and/or “hilarious” accidents, would lead to the same result: Them passing another day in their boring and pointless lives.

One of these anime series is Ichigo Mashimaro, loosely translated as “Strawberry Marshmellow”; Every member of the anime-elite will at this point either say I’m talking about old news, or ask themselves, if it’s another one of these loli-fanservice anime springing up left and right in Japan at the moment (or have been always), and they would be right in both cases.

There exists one distinct word for this anime: Boring. I thought this series would soon be long forgotten, wandering around in the wastelands of anime history with fellow yawners such as Hidamari Sketch, but my optimism was sadly unfounded.

Most anime series with bad storylines make up the missing intellectual stimulation with action-scenes and randomly blowing things up once in a while. And even though I find this lame and uninspiring, it’s still better than the snore-fest Ichigo Mashimaro churns out each episode. Not are there no things exploding, but the animation is also on the edge of abysmal: Most scenes are simply made up of very few static images, characters looking around, contemplating about something which is neither mentioned nor is relevant, then one of the characters saying something cute, and that’s it. Then the next scene spews the exact same diarrhea.

Another way to make a good anime is to use the humor route and critically comment on society, or simply life in general, but while there is some of this in the beginning of the show, after 2 episodes the creators seem to have run out of ideas and return to the old and tested fanservice routines.

Every time there is a good idea present (or a bad one, it doesn’t matter), it is stretched out beyond belief. The characters keep on talking about the same trivial refuse over and over again, then some more static images pop up. Sometimes the characters even use their hands or walk a little bit, as to remind the audience that they are actually watching an animation, and not reading a manga.

And lets not forget the loli fanservice. How far can implied sexual innuendo, between a high school girl and a young loli, carry a show? The fans of this anime were taken all the way it seems, and I really don’t see why. The whole loli-fanservice thematic is used throughout almost every piece of Japanese animation, why should there be a need to dedicate an entire show to a concept, which has been already done for ages?

Most fans will argue about how the series is supposed to provoke sympathy for the characters. I would reply: Indeed, they are nice, but nice guys finish last, and nice girls are bad in bed. Oh, and boring too. One probably includes the other anyway.