Rock is a Lady Being Cringe, apparently
As per usual, I have spent the past week in a panicked frenzy watching like seven anime because I just realized that the seasons are about to change and I finally get to catch up on Dandan. And I’ll talk about all of those spring anime I just had to finish later on in this video, but I thought it was really important to start this one out by just tearing down Rock as a Lady’s Modesty as much as I possibly can. And I think the best way to do that while maintaining my spoiler-free mo on this channel is just to tell you guys about my experience watching the first episode. We open things up in Noble High School, which is weird because this isn’t a fantasy anime. It’s actually an all girls school filled with Japan’s elites and upper class, which is very normal and relatable. But our main character, Lilisa, actually isn’t like that. She’s just a regular old piece of [ __ ] like us. You see, her mom got remarried to a massive real estate mogul. And in the process, Lisa had to give up playing guitar and her love of rock and roll that was introduced to her by her father, which is very normal and relatable. And now she’s trying to achieve some unspoken goal by being an exemplary lady and earning the title of the school’s noble maiden, which probably in this context means blending in with her furniture, but in a really pretty way. But okay, I see what we’re getting at here, right? Rock is going to be the medium by which she escapes the stifling atmosphere in this scenario and really expresses herself as a person and and maybe even wins people over to her side and changes the way that the school sees things like crude rock and roll. And that’s when we get to the jam session. Now, full disclosure, I am a musician. My main instrument is the drum set. I’m something of a real rock and roller myself. So, you can take this as a professional opinion when I tell you that the jam session is one of the lamest things I have ever seen. Never in my life have I been more keenly aware that the writers of a piece of media had no idea what they were talking about. Let me explain. She and another student start playing the guitar and drums respectively to a metal track that they both know and they’re kind of shredding. It’s pretty good. There’s some CGI drums, but I can get past that. But then we get Lisa’s internal monologue, and she is honestly blown away by the skill on display here, by the talent of this rich drummer girl as she plays basic metal beats and simple fills. When it comes to drumming, a faster or more intense beat does not necessarily make it more difficult. Losing It All by Amber Lynn is one of the softest songs you will ever hear, and the drums in that song are significantly harder to play than the music they played in this scene. Celery, she’s a guitarist. Maybe she just doesn’t know how difficult certain drum beats are. Are you happy now? No. Because after that, she starts monologuing about how she’s being overwhelmed by the intensity of the drumming, how it’s overpowering her guitar and drowning out her sound. Turn your amp up. There is a black box in the corner of the room with a tiny little knob on it that says volume. Turn it up. Drums are acoustic. Your guitar is electric. I’m supposed to believe that this woman has been playing guitar long enough to have hardened calluses on her fingers to be able to shred the way she does in this scene and she doesn’t know how to turn up an amplifier. What purpose does any of this serve apart from showing off your weird BDSM fan art that came out of absolutely nowhere? By the way, this is based in reality. It’s something that actually exists playing music. You can’t be so far off from the truth of the matter just to serve your own purposes. This is terrible. And almost as if to slap me in the face after leaving me slack jawed at the end of the scene once they finish the song. Lisa has her redemptive moment where she shreds through the rest of it. She plays pretty well. The track ends. The drummer just randomly starts playing a drum fill, hitting all the drums as fast as she can, slapping them with the sticks, going crazy, and then looks at Leisa when she’s done and says, “You’re lame because you stopped playing. You burned out. That means you’re bad. You should quit music forever.” What is happening? Do you know what would happen? Do you know what people would call it if the drummer at a gig just randomly started playing a drum fill after the rest of the band stopped playing? They’d call it cringe. And that’s what this is. I gave it a few more episodes after that, but it just doesn’t stop being lame, and I’m not finishing it. I’m dropping it forever, so I can’t give it a score, but I definitely don’t recommend it. Oh, and by the way, hello and welcome back to Bing Last Season. This episode’s going to be fun. And now that I’ve spent too long rambling about a show that I didn’t even like, I will need to speed through the rest of my to-do list from spring. Pause the video if you want to read the details, and let’s get into it. I still haven’t caught up to Fire Force, but I do love it. I haven’t cared about Hero Academia since season 3, and a spin-off isn’t going to change that. I just don’t like Loser Ranger, and I refuse to watch the anime version of a book that I had for summer reading in high school. I didn’t care about Ann of Green Gables, and I don’t care about anime of Green Gables. You can laugh. That was a really good one. As for the ones I started but haven’t finished, I watched a bit of the Guilty Gear Strive adaptation because I still haven’t gotten over my obsession with Nakata Joji, and I just don’t understand the hate boner that people have for this show. So far, it is a ridiculous and camp over-the-top story that makes absolutely no sense, but it looks cool. That’s Guilty Gear in a nutshell. I don’t understand what the issue is here. The fights are pretty neat, and even the CGI looks good. I can’t give this thing a rating based on just two episodes, but I’m definitely going to go back and finish it. And the 5.9 it has right now on my anime list just seems too low. I feel like I’ve been watching this show for 300 years and maxed out my boredom. Now, I’m being a bit harsh there, I know, but I’m six episodes into Slime 300 season 2, and it feels like now that they’ve introduced all their characters, they don’t really know what to do with them. To be fair, there was never really a plot here to begin with, but that was much less noticeable during season 1. And there is just something off about the water spirit drenching the child version of Asuza every time she sees her. Those scenes are deeply uncomfortable. They set off alarm bells in my brain, and I’m just begging Japan for mercy. I mean, is this about World War II? I already told you. I’m sorry. What more do you want? Feels like a six so far compared to the seven I gave season 1. Moving on. This anime makes me sad. Syame pictures keeps churning out bangers, so I knew I had to watch Apocalypse Hotel, but I I just can’t do it, man. I am three episodes in to this visually bright and artistic, beautifully colorful and upbeat anime about the slow and unstoppable March of Death. There’s just a grim air hanging over this show due to its concept of a group of robots who will continue to staff a hotel on Earth until the return of humanity, which will never happen as they slowly break down over time. I’m only three episodes in and I don’t know what’s going to happen. I can only go based on vibes. So, I’m going to put this as simply as possible. I refuse to watch Doorman Robot die. Fun fact, Japan likes baseball a lot. I’m halfway through Catch Me at the Ballpark, which is basically an anthological collection of skits. It is pleasant. It is funny. I’m adding clips from it to my meme collection. Oh my destiny. And I’m probably giving it an 8 out of 10. Moving on to anime I’ve actually finished. Let’s talk about the Shiunji family children. And hold on one second. What was that? Don’t worry about it. Little pro tip for all the drama writers out there. For those who have spent their entire lives dedicated to building up the suspense and tension in a show, your big plot twist probably sucks. Why’ I bring that up? I don’t know. The Shioji Family Children is about a group of kids who have lived together for their entire lives. They’re all ranging between 14 and 18 years old. And on their youngest sister’s birthday, their dad finally decides to tell them that they were all adopted. Now, this wouldn’t be an issue if the youngest sister hadn’t just confessed her love for the eldest brother, but it’ll be fine because he’s got a good head on his shoulders and he knows that they’re still family. I mean, it’s not like everyone else is going to start acting crazy, right? The Shinjunji family children is fun to watch because despite what they may say, people like watching a car crash. In reality, people would never fall in love with somebody that they grew up with as a sibling, even if they only thought that was the case. I mean, respectfully, if my sister asked me out on a date tomorrow, I’d throw up, and I expect she’d do the same. But when it’s anime and it’s not happening to you, Sweet Home Alabama Quintessential Quintuplets is actually pretty interesting and fun. As I nodded to there, the character tropes are basically the same and copypasted. It is just as pretty, and the main character is actually a decent guy who is doing his best to ensure that we don’t have a royal family situation. Plus, he actually has a good relationship with his younger brother, so there’s always somebody in his corner. And no, they don’t cross that line. Thank god. And it was made by Doakobo, so of course the quality is out of this world. I mean, it looks good. It sounds good. It’s compelling. It’s a seven out of 10. Don’t ask me why. Can I just say, by the way, there was too much etchy in Spring. I don’t know why it happened. I I mean, I think it’s because of Valentine’s Day, right? But there was just so much. I mean, between Yandere Dark Elf, Machina’s a lovebot, and Hi-Tech Kurasai Takamina, it’s just too much. You guys expect me to watch all of this? I mean, with all due respect, my penis is tired. You guys think it’s all fun and games, but spare a thought for my penis. 7 out of 10. I didn’t watch the other ones. I’ve been putting off telling you guys this, but at this point, it needs to be said. Uma Cinderella Gray is unfortunately the best thing I watched from Spring. Windbreaker was the runner up, but it wasn’t that close. And between Cinderella Grey, Apocalypse Hotel, and The Summer Hikaru died, Syame Pictures is looking terrifying right now. It’s like they can do no wrong. You don’t need to watch the prior seasons of Umamus to watch Cinderella Gay. And unless you want to be mentally unwell like me, you shouldn’t. But if you’re going to take one recommendation blind from this video, let it be Cinderella Gray because it is exceptional. It is intense. It’s dramatic. It’s funny. It is visually outstanding and for once it’s an Umamus adaptation that makes the most of everything that the concept has to offer. I gave it a nine and the only reason I didn’t give it a 10 is because I had just binged all of the Umamus media available and I thought I was experiencing Stockholm syndrome. I got to double check this one. I mean after drowning in sludge, even a rock looks like a gem. Last up is Kuloon Generic Romance and this one was unfortunate. This show is more mystery than romance, and that means it suffers from if I tell you any details past episode 1, I will spoil the entire thing for you syndrome. So, I’ll say this. We’re given a world that is both dystopian and nostalgic within the walled city, and it’s drawn in a style closer to old school anime to intensify that feeling. It’s very pretty, but it’s also slightly uncomfortable. And there are strange phenomena happening around every corner. and the mystery surrounding Kuji and her coworker Kudo draws you in and chills your spine just a little bit. And at the start, I thought we had a tent on our hands. I mean, I don’t even like old school anime, but I was completely locked in. But as the series goes on, it starts to feel dirtier. And every time we learn something new about the mystery, it actively makes the show worse. I more or less figured out what was going on about halfway through. And once that was confirmed, I really didn’t care how it ended. I can’t say any more than that without spoiling the show. And I honestly didn’t hate it. I would recommend that you watch it, but it just felt like we had something really special at the beginning. And the more that time went on, the more I just ended up getting disappointed. I gave it a 7 out of 10 because it had a lot of redeeming qualities. It was really well polished, but it just left me feeling dirty by the end. And that’s it for the spring 2025 run of Binging Last Season. And this is just a little message at the end of the video for you guys that are interested. There are probably changes to the channel coming in the near future. Namely, I think I’m going to stop making weekly episodes of Binging Last Season cuz it seems like that’s not really a format that people are too interested in. And I’ve been sitting on like 20 games that I bought specifically so that I could make videos about them for the channel and just never did. The plan is to keep making BLS videos once every two weeks, but every other week I’d like an opportunity to do something else, like the Uma Musu video that I have been sitting on for a calendar year that I simply cannot finish. Or I’ve been thinking about making a video pleading with the anime industry to stop adapting web tunes because it’s clearly not going well. And now is the time to change things up considering the absolute state of YouTube. But I will be maintaining something close to a weekly upload schedule and binging last season isn’t going anywhere. That’s all from me.
I am so very tired
Anime featured:
Rock Is a Lady’s Modesty
Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers
I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level Season 2
Apocalypse Hotel
Catch Me at the Ballpark!
The Shiunji Family Children
Yandere Dark Elf: She Chased Me All the Way From Another World! (referenced in passing, no clips for reasons)
Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray
Kowloon Generic Romance
ask me for specific scenes in the comments if you’re unsure about something