Sometimes a show comes along that just deserves to be eviscerated. Perhaps it showcases the worst of anime’s stereotypes. Perhaps it takes an interesting premise and ruins it with befuddling plots or infuriating character arcs. Perhaps you think a show should literally be labelled a war crime by the Geneva Convention. That’s where the HATEWATCH comes in. When the show does it to such a degree, sometimes you need to watch it just for the cathartic value of demolishing whatever dreg of culture or bad taste it represents. This is #HATEWATCH 2017. The show: A Sister Is All You Need. Its sins: ANIME IS STILL GETTING AWAY WITH THIS LITTLE SISTER BS

Marlin’s Thoughts

#HATEWATCH lands its final episode and boy is it a wet fart of a finale. Once again, we are shown the depths of Itsuki’s selfishness and once again I cannot tell whether this is a parody or whether the author thinks we should legitimately be feeling sorry for this narcissistic prick. All of his unhappiness is self-caused, and he never makes any effort to reverse the negative behaviors that perpetuate it, instead always doubling down on them from some misplaced sense of pride in his position as an author, as if that doesn’t make him a degenerate loser. No one is entitled to someone else’s love. It is the consistent mockery of anime fans that they seem to believe the love of women is only held back from them by some arbitrary societal prejudice and not because of their garbage personalities. Itsuki becomes the embodiment of these losers by throwing an emotionally vulnerable girl out of his house for refusing to reciprocate his feelings, as if he is the victim. Despicable.

Hilariously, after so many episodes of wasting half the show basically making a 15 minute ad for some board game, the very last episode does it again. No plot development. No even good character interactions. Just another opportunity to make tasteless dick jokes and act as if all the characters involved aren’t broken beyond repair. Then, once it was all over, the show had the audacity to imply it was setting up for a second season. I cannot imagine that being possible. The set-ups for next season are so flimsy that even if they advertise for every board game on the planet every episode I can’t see how they could pad out another twelve episodes with this tripe. I’m sure the whole “someone dropped an anime” is a pretext for drama with Nayu, but I am going to hope against hope that such a second season never materializes.

Once again: Filters do not make something look dramatic, just cheap.

Marlin’s Ethics Lesson of the Week

​In a way, Itsuki used that random childhood friend as a friend of utility. He did not genuinely care about her, but only wanted to have her around to enjoy her company and lust after her. Sure, in context it is very weird that she would spend so much intimate time with a pubescent teen and not expect him to be shitty about it, but Itsuki is still responsible for his actions. He deserves to be alone because he never truly loves anyone, only ever considering the other’s good on his own selfish terms.

Random observations

• I can’t help but feel this childhood friend character looks like Minorin from Toradora, and I will not tolerate her to be besmirched by this classless hack.
• I hope there’s someone at Sankt Gallen that got fired for how much they were involved with this production.
• Hilariously, I went on a tirade in this episode’s comments section on Crunchyroll and they were all deleted. Even the ones that weren’t even offensive. Guess we know who the anime industry is willing to protect.
• Props to Jel for his help, both in blogging and in the flame graphic we use to close out these series. Our boss is the true bro of the GLORIO crew.

I try to imagine him looking out from a Superman 2 space jail and, momentarily, my heart is at ease.

Marlin’s Final Thoughts

Even if the Crunchyroll comments section implies there are a lot more trash human beings that can somehow enjoy this garbage than I was expecting, even for a terrible show it raised the bar for how much of a complete mess it was. As Gee keeps telling me, say what you will about Eromanga-Sensei (Lord knows I already have), the thing had a ridiculous amount of money put into its anime budget. Imosae? Less so. Much less so. What Eromanga-Sensei brought in complete shamelessness in its writing, Imosae raised the bar by being shameless about everything. Waste five minutes talking about a beer? Sure. Spend ten minutes with your main female characters naked for no real reason? Sure. Have sexual assault be the norm, instead of a crime, in this universe? I guess we’re disgusting enough people to actually put this to film. At every point, Imosae lowered the standards of its audience to the point that I could hardly consider anyone that watches this show unironically a human being except homonymously.

An accurate representation of the GLORIO crew looking at this show.

After the last #HATEWATCH, I thought I was done. I thought that there was no possible way anyone could make something more offensive and classless than Eromanga-Sensei. I thought that the depths of depravity were reached when its audience was expected to lust after an 11 year old and find the fact that she learned how to draw pornography from her mother cute and not child endangerment. I thought we’d reached the bottom when the ultimate male fantasy was made visual as three women clawed at the opportunity to see the bland male expy naked and pose for him. But I was wrong. Oh, how I was wrong.You see, you and I can understand that that part of Eromanga-Sensei was meant to be positive for all its male fans. I can’t imagine in the mind of every pervert they see a man getting sexually assaulted and not imagine them being “so lucky” or some garbage like that. What brings Imosae to the next level is that this male lust is turned towards the women of the production. Much in the way Sagiri became the expy of the male desires of its audience, this job is split threefold. Itsuki becomes the mental expy of the trash otaku, always having to get things his way and always thinking he’s right in his head. Then, trash artist guy and Nayu split duties of the sexual expy. They get to be predatory and disgusting in the ways those kinds of people can only dream of. Try to rip a girl’s panties off? You only get a way with a kick in the face and some exasperated words. Want to strip a girl naked? You just have to flash eyes at them, and if that doesn’t work you just assault them the same way, except they always enjoy it. The sheer depravity involved here is at a level I doubt we’ll ever see again, even from a second season.

In the end, the lesson we have to take away is that you can have too much of a good thing, and boy you can definitely have too much of a bad thing. #HATEWATCH started as a way to renew my vigor for blogging again. The business of the past few years had made that harder and harder as both my interest and time shrunk. In the beginning, it was a really enjoyable exercise, getting to be completely flabbergasted at what Eromanga-Sensei had to throw at me every week was a great way to keep my writing chops sharp, as well as a daily reminder that we as anime fans can rise above the trash they feed us. However, once I decided to revive it with Imosae the exercise became hollow. The weight of realizing I hadn’t found the worst show, and that another one was just on the horizon, was so frustrating I could barely stand it. What’s more, half the time this show was booooooooring, which took any joy out of ripping it to shreds. With this, I officially announce the #HATEWATCH will be shelved once again. I will leave it to any of my fellow bloggers to revive the franchise, but I think my time with it has come to a close.
See you hate cowboy…