One of the things I love about anime is that, despite having it’s own hellishly overused setups, the medium in general doesn’t seem to be afraid to turn out the occasional piece with an absolutely insane concept. Nothing is too specific or too stupid… and with creativity and effort, a lot of studios can make it work. We’ve seen shows where clothing is an evil alien plot, a show where teenagers body swap via kiss, a show where Earth is overrun by gribbly black monsters that can only be fought by incarnate musical scores, a show that somehow manages twelve episodes of a kidnapped princess trying to get better sleep, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
But just because way more crazy ideas do work than some folks would expect doesn’t mean that they all work; that creativity and effort are key; throwing some bland idiot into a fantasy universe with a modern smartphone adapted to the setting? That didn’t pan out. Super-teenagers who power up by getting horny to fight lust-eating bug monsters? About as awkward as it sounds and somehow even less amusing. Stuffing a tecnophobe’s brain into a weird black-box ultratech device, giving him super hacking powers? Worst. Anime. Ever. And I don’t think I can even summarize half the madness that went into Penguindrum, but suffice to say it didn’t stick the landing in my eyes.
What I’m getting at here is that Hand Shakers – a show that forces our lead pair to have mystical death battles while also forcing them to continuously hold hands – was not, I repeat not, dead on arrival. No, Hand Shakers was murdered. Let’s try to find the culprit, shall we?
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