When it comes to anime, we all have our own junk food that we enjoy – shows laden with fanservice and sometimes lacking in plot. Comforting shows, where you can predict most turns before they happen and take solace in your relative prescience because that’s what you were looking to see.
All the same, there’s a degree to which we can still draw distinction between these shows, the Isekai and Battle School affairs that are a dime a dozen in any day. Some, like the Academy City shows dare to rise above their station, at least to a degree. Others, like Unbreakable Machine Doll can comfortably inhabit their genre while still providing something of substance and quality. On the other end of the spectrum there are also the shows that are just plain lazy like Yuna and the Haunted Hot Springs and on down from there until you get to the truly horrible outings like Omamori Himari or In Another World With My Smartphone.
As you might tell, while you could, depending on how you feel about them, call any of those shows “Junk food” in one sense or another, as a matter of acknowledging their appeal to visceral enjoyments, discerning between them remains relevant and, for a reviewer such as myself, important. So I want to be clear, when I’m looking at Infinite Stratos, that I’m not looking at an anime that’s trying to be great; I’m looking at as an anime that wants to entertain you, that’s deliberate in its staleness, that doesn’t go quite as big and crazy as an Exploitation show but that has the same habit of feeding you what it thinks you want first and what’s good for you at best second. So, without further adieu, let us dive in.
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