After watching 8 episodes of Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai, I am really crazy to continue watching this show this far while everyone else in the blogosphere stopped at episode 2 or even late as episode 6. The reason I kept watching is the cute girls in the show. However, when somebody asked why I am still watching this with the addition of a rather disturbing scene in Episode 8, I said enough is enough. I’m finally dropping this show once and for all! (Image Source)
Instead of asking, “why are you still watching this show,” you should ask to yourself “what is the overall premise of this show?” I know Navel is not known for unorthodox storytelling methods, but Ore-tachi is one of the most confusing pieces of storytelling I ever seen. The story of the three different male personalities would make a lot more sense in a visual novel, but it doesn’t quite work in an Anime adaptation with only twelve episodes to work with. Unless you have two seasons like ef or manage to fit all the arcs into twelve episodes in an efficient manner like in Air, the visual novel adaptation will most likely fall flat on its face. For long visual novels, 24 to 26 episodes is a reasonable amount to fit majority of the important developments from the original source material so the viewers won’t get confused.
Because of time constraints, the show only skimmed the surface on the plot and instead opted to throw comedy with a lot of fanservice. While some of the fanservice is tolerable such as the panty shots, they were pushing it too far in Episode 8, which led me to drop the show. In this scene, Yamashina basically takes off her clothing and Takashi’s to have intercourse in his fantasy world. That scene was basically the last straw of this show and seriously, if I wanted to see something like this if I really wanted, I would rather watch Yosuga no Sora since it is not censored. Either way, scenes like these are still disturbing nevertheless.
While the girls are cute and some of the jokes are okay, I felt like I wasted valuable time when I watch this show as nothing is really accomplished. Sure the opening song and the animation are good, but everything else is poorly executed. If I wanted to watch a visual novel adaptation with fantasy, adventure and sword fighting, I would have continued Tears to Tiara or start watching Fate/Stay Night, which is collecting dust on my hard drive. Either way, it is too late to turn the clock back and say NO to this show. Therefore, I have to move on and avoid any anime adaptations of Navel’s visual novels in the future.
Thanks for reminding me to start watching this again. Now where’s my watching buddy…
This reminds me, I should really start watching stuff with other people considering that I have been neglecting this season with so much stuff happening…
Anyway, have fun~
Well, you gave it a chance. I don’t always enjoy the same things other folks do, so I am willing to watch things others have long since dropped. I also respect the opinions of others enough to leave a lot of things alone, and just read the reviews. If the reviews warrant it, I might reconsider and pick up a show I dismissed at first. On the other hand, there are some shows that never get better. In the end, you have to do what your heart tells you is for the best.
Come to think of it, Oretachi is perhaps the only show I gave a chance before dropping after 8 episodes, which is probably the longest I hold out thus far compared to what I did with Neko Overrun, Rio: Rainbow Gate and Kampfer, which is dropped in 2 to 3 episodes. Like I have mentioned before, I am pretty lenient when it comes to watching things as I only select a few and stick with them… While the direction is disappointing, I can’t really say I have totally wasted my time on it as I enjoyed some aspects of the show… While I probably won’t pick this show up again in the future, I will give the visual novel a try and most likely it will be significantly clearer with the overall plot of these male leads and their accompanied girls.
I just ended up getting a headache trying to watch episode 8. This is the greatest mindscrew of our time, forget Eva and Donnie Darko. Seriously, I do not want my head to hurt unnecessarily watching a bloody fanservice show.
I have to agree, episode 8 was one of the biggest mindfucks I have seen in Anime, excluding the ones in Shaft Anime, but still better than what Oretachi provides. Sure cute girls appeal to me, but they are easy to find these days and the shows probably have better plot with fanservice excluded.
Hm it’s too bad that Oretachi wasted so much of its potential. Now that the whole show is out the plot makes a lot of sense in hindsight, and for me it was kind of fun to figure it out too. I do agree that the scene in episode 8 with the sex was really overblown and disgusting. Since it takes place in Haneda’s fantasy world that exists for the sole purpose to stroke his ego whenever he feels some pressure in real life. (Basically Hanade fails big time)
I did some pondering about how Hanade’s mind was set up and came up with this:
Hanade’s psyche seems to be fragmented into multiple levels.
1. There’s the cockpit where the personality currently in charge takes control of the body.
2. The church area where Hayato and Chitose hang out and talk about what they’ve experienced. Apparently when one is in the cockpit the other can’t see the outside world, so the two have to tell each other what they saw. (Like how Chitose didn’t know Naru’s name and Hayato didn’t know Tamaizumi)
3. Hanade’s fantasy land Gretagurdo or something. He hides there like a pussy whenever life gets a little bit tougher and imagines himself to be some AWESOME HERO HAWK CYAN BLUE to improve his piss poor self esteem. I figured it was something like that as soon as I saw all these random people gathering into an army and kissing his ass, saying stuff like “SUCH IS THE VIRTUE OF HAWK CYAN BLUE!” You can probably tell I didn’t like Haneda much. I’m glad he wasn’t the main personality.
4. ZE ABYSS. The awesome KING Garuda is stuck in here, at least until feelings of anger propel him to the cockpit. He truly believes that he’s from Gretagurdo, which results in some hilarious situations when he finally comes to the real world. It’s a shame Garuda never got more then one chance to really run free.
The original personality Youji is also in the Abyss watching Dream TV. From that TV he can see what all his other personalities are doing and view the cockpit at the same time. Or he can fantasize about pretty girls in Santa outfits playing perverted twister.
In the end it seems like all 5 personalities merged into one. A little bit of each personality shows up in the original now and he has all of the memories. A pretty solid ending overall.
This blogger:
https://blogs.emory.edu/animec/2011/06/24/series-review-oretachi-ni-tsubasa-wa-nai/#comment-2503
Made a pretty fair review about the show as a whole if you’re still interested in seeing how it turned out but not interested enough to watch another episode.
I understand that Takashi has serious problems with his life and he needs to escape the real world to gain his self confidence and have other personalities to take over his piss poor weak self. While he might be a nice guy, I have to say he is a rather pathetic compared to the other leads.
Granted, Oretachi is not the worst anime in the spring season (C probably surpassed the disappointment compared to Fractale for some), but Takashi is definitely a big turnoff, especially when they throw disturbing stuff like the sex scene out of nowhere in Episode 8. Otherwise, the fanservice does not really bother me. I might take it off the dropped status and finish the final four episodes when I’m totally bored and give it another chance if the ending was that good.