Check-out Station: Wanna Be The Strongest in the World

If there is a higher being watching over me, then I ask them not to let me watch something this crappy again.  It feels like my guardian angel is a heavy drinker and tonight was $1 pitcher night at the pub.  I am forsaken.  This show is forsaken.  And anyone who planned and produced this series needs divine punishment.

Episode 11

What a load of crap! I can’t believe this show is trying to sell this match as something inspiring and exciting. All they’re doing is performing submissions for extremely long amounts of time. Elena herself threw in four or five knee bars in that one match! If this were a matchup of two pro wrestlers known for being technically proficient, then maybe this would be considered exciting to some, but honestly these girls are more sluggers than submission experts.

Ugh! What a pain of an episode. It’s not even worth going over the episodes events since most of the episode was Elena kicking Sakura’s ass, or the two exchanging submission holds.  I feel almost insulted by this episode (gross hyperbole).  It strikes me as a waste of animation.  It’s like the show went all the way back to why I originally thought it was bad.  Lazy editing and directing, sorry animation, an annoying focus on elongated shots of crotch, ass, boobs and moaning, it all sucks.  The worst decision of all was deciding to have virtually no music, or sad music playing during the parts where the crowd was supposed to be watching in awe and getting excited.  Man,  I can’t wait to finish this show.  My patience has officially died.

Episode 12

Oh so they finally learn how to do wrestling action?  It’s too late!  It’s much too late!  Sure, there’s a pretty decent set here and there, but really this is merely stuff that the show should’ve had in the first place.  To make matters worse, we get this stupid long drawn out ending where everyone in the show shows up and the crowd is divided by people who want Sakura to stay a wrestler, and those that want her to go back to idol work.  In the end, it’s Jackal that decides it for everyone, telling both Sakura and Elena that they’ll continue both idol work for Sweet Diva and wrestling on the even tougher world stage in Shangri~La’s wrestling circuit.  Because, you know that makes total sense.

Wow.

This show has been a complete disaster.  I don’t even know where to start.  I guess the positives would be the quickest thing to cover, so I’ll start there first….  I’m thinking.  Well, the show at times can do wrestling action right.  The show, at times, has had surprising moments.  The show, mostly doesn’t though.  OK, that’s the best I can do.  Moving on!

This show is a failure on so many levels.  First and foremost, it’s a sh*tty anime.  Then it’s a sh*tty wrestling anime  And then it’s terribly uninspired, and my experience with good sports anime just makes this show’s flaws stand out even more.

Production wise, this show is a mess.  The animation is slow, sloppy and stilted at times.  It doesn’t have Gundam SEED’s problem of rampant reused animations, but it’s so uninspired in what it does show.  The colors in this show are so muted, it’s sad.  The animation already looks like it’s several years behind other productions, the lack of quality color makes this modern show already look dated.  The CG in the show is atrocious, the crowds almost remind me of crappy crowd animations from sports video games.  And my god is the music terrible.  There was not one piece of music that I enjoyed, or that stood out to me.  The opening and ending animations and themes just go to show that there’s nothing production wise to enjoy.

Going back to the fact that it’s a specifically sh*tty wrestling anime, it has to be said that this show has no idea what makes wrestling exciting or admirable.  It completely fails when it comes to the technical side, or the spectacle of the events.

For some reason, Wanna Be The Strongest thinks that wrestling holds with women moaning in pain makes this show enjoyable to watch on any level.  I suppose that would be fine if this were an ecchi anime that focused on that from time to time, but that’s not the case.  This show is not only obsessed with being pervy, it’s obsessed with putting women in positions to make the show more pervy.  And this gets in the way of this show being enjoyable to watch as more than some terrible softcore hentai.  The show’s action for the most part is just uncomfortably elongated shots of women’s crotches, boobs and ass cheeks as they moan in pain while in a submission hold.  I hate to say it, but it’s like these scenes are just designed so you can squeeze in a quick wank in between holds and scenes.  It’s so lazy and boring that it fails even when it is viewed in a solely pervy light.

Compounding the anime’s failure on the ecchi level, the wrestling itself couldn’t entertain anyone.  Even the intros of the characters are boring.  I found this to be a big missed opportunity for the show.  Here we have a show that revolves around the idol world almost as much as the wrestling one, yet we can’t manage a decent group of intros for the characters?  The music is not recognizable, memorable or good.  The intros are boring and uninspired.  And with the opening and ending themes for this show being the only things recognizable in this show, it stands as a sad example of how little thought and care went into this anime.

At this point, I suppose I could go in-depth into what I think of the characters, but there’s not much point.  As a main character, Sakura is brainless and unrecognizable outside this show.  She stands out in no way, and is as generic and pampered a heroine as they come.  She has enough natural talent to good at two very different professions, but does not have enough personality to make me believe that she actually could make friends with anyone.  Other than that, there’s not one single other character worth talking about.

It all strikes me as a soulless cash grab that should insult anyone who loves anime, wrestling or idols.  Hell, even the pervs shouldn’t be satisfied with this mess.

All in all, I can’t recommend this show to anyone.  I suppose I could tie down people I hate and make them watch this, but I don’t want to be labeled as a sadistic bastard.  My only hope is that this show doesn’t get a second season, or any hype from its slightly pervier Blu-ray release.  Hell, this thing doesn’t even warrant a damn Blu-ray release.  I Wanna Be The Strongest in The World should be avoided at all costs.

Further Reading:

• Wanna Be The Strongest ep10: b*tch you coming home!
• Wanna Be The Strongest ep9: her first wrestling fan
• Wanna Be The Strongest ep8: the art of spotting, selling and entertaining the f*ck out of your audience!
• Wanna Be The Strongest ep7: Gold Jackal, Blue Panther
• Wanna Be The Strongest ep5 & 6: the crabs return, in force!
• Wanna Be the Strongest ep4: how to get rid of crabs
• Wanna Be the Strongest ep3: the next person I see in a Boston Crab is getting lit on fire
• Wanna Be The Strongest ep2: a sweet pickle!
• Check-in Station: Wanna Be the Strongest in the World ep1 (oh no! Not the Shame Hold! The humanity!)