Comments on Senran Kagura · 3:58pm Nov 6th, 2018
Yep, I'm going into THAT rabbit hole. Burning hell of a rabbit hole.
A fair warning- if you're a person deeply offended by GRATUITOUS fanservice, panty shots, fanservice, moe waifus, fanservice, boobs, fanservice, butts and borderline NSFW content in video games and anime, you might want to skip this blog post entirely. Trust me, this series is way more explicit than anything I've talked about before (combined), but not porn enough to boot me out of this site... I hope. I mean, there are some seriously weird stories in Feature Box and... I'll shut up now.
Senran Kagura is a franchise with a very simple premise- cute teen ninja girls, boobs, butts and crazy action scenes. It's like someone took 16 year old me and asked what was best in life (back then I didn't watch Conan movies, today the answer is slightly different).
The setting: modern day Japan, ninja schools exists and they all train busty (and a few token lolis) kunoichi and there's like, 2 or 3 male characters in the entire franchise (and I'm pretty sure one of them is not a human). The story follows a group of top student from several such academies on their daily lives of hard training, ninja tournaments, high drama, duels that end with tattered clothes, weirder and weirder fighting styles as the series goes on, as well as tragic backstories for pretty much every single character. No, I'm not joking with that last part: the writing on the characters, their backstories in particular, is genuinely great!
Imagine playing a simple musou-like brawler where cute stuff happens, when all of a sudden, WHAM! Flashback about one character working to save her ninja parents that refused to kill an old man who took care of orphans and were thus sentenced to lifelong prison, leaving their then 6 year daughter to live a lonely life. Now imagine giving a different, but equally as depressing, backtory to several dozen characters, keep the fanservice level at high levels most of the time, except those parts don't seem to interfere with each other as much as I thought they would.
This is the strangest part of the appeal. Unlike Kill La Kill, which used the fanservice to specifically tell it's story, Senran Kagura doesn't, it's just there. In any other work of fiction it would ruin the experience, but somehow it doesn't. The drama and serious moments of backstories and story during the game are left intact, sometimes even strengthened by it. Even when after combat both girls are in their bikinis.
Look, I won't beat around the bush, I love nudity and sexual humor and I don't think it lessens any work of fiction if applied properly (as I previously proved with Stallionverse versions of Soarin and Moondancer, and how a different story became popular because of that version of Cloud Kicker). The problem is that very few authors know how to do it, either going too far with the fanservice or explicit nature of the work, or not far enough, but not quite in a good medium. That's where Senran Kagura stands, in my opinion. Feel free to disagree.
As for the gameplay side of things, it's a hella fun to play, either beating hundreds of faceless mooks with creative combos and odd weapons, or dueling bosses and destroying their clothing, one part after another. It's even more fun if you apply the no-censorship mode, which may or may not exists, that I may or may not played the entire game with (I totally did). The only gripe I have with the game, is that the levels are way too damn short and there's no variety in the game AT ALL, it's just mooks or a boss fight. Heck, there's exactly ONE level in the game where you fight more than a single boss at the same time and it was one of the funner level in the game. And it's in the middle of the game and storywise it's not important at all (fyi: I only played Shinovi Versus, which isn't a typo btw).
Dressing the characters in different costumes was super fun, though. I will never get tired of the underwear lottery. Yes, that's a thing. No I have no shame.
As for the anime adaptation, it... well, exists.
I might be new to the franchise, but the anime didn't grab me at all. I'm stuck in the middle of season 1 and I'm not sure if it's even worth continuing. The season 2 is currently running, time will tell if I ever watch it. Games are A LOT better in every possible way.
As to why I included it as a chapter name instead of Star vs the Forces of Evil (I will get to it, I swear, I just need to catch up on season 2 and 3!) and how it counts as a magical girl show, I will leave you with this little compilation:
I already accepted that I will burn in the fires of hell.
...also, Katsuragi is best girl. Would you believe I like her because of her personality? That's not a joke.
Probably played even less Senran Kagura. Only a bit of Estival Versus. Mostly to familiarize myself with the characters before their very likely inclusion in BBTAG. Might have to get back to that.
Also I'm personally hoping for a chapter about Little Witch Academia.
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...wait, I never made one before? ...huh, I could've swore I did. In the future, then.
I could never get into Senran Kagura, because the games looked like either straight up fighting games (which seem to be exactly the same today as they were in the early 2000's) or watered-down Dynasty Warriors. It's the standard JRPG problem; maybe the characters and story are jolly entertaining, but if the gameplay is boring, I'm at a brick wall.
Tried watching the anime once and I don't think I even got through the second episode before I just lost interest, but it's gratifying to hear that I'm not missing anything with that anyway.
Do the ninja schools have sensha-do teams? If not, booooring.
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Senran Kagura Is an arena game, think about the thousands of Dragon Ball games after that one on the famicom or the Naruto games...
This said, regarding fighting games the gameplay is far more enjoyable than the FPS I assume you enjoy (if I am wrong then I apologise)
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The only Dragon Ball games I'm familiar with (other than that one on the Gameboy where you go through the Frieza saga) were all fighting games, same with the only Naruto game I've ever heard of. The former had some neat ideas, like the button-mash-flash-step-insanity moments that (I think?) happened when both fighters hit each other at the exact same time, and the ability to send someone flying and literally end up in a whole different battlefield to continue the fight there, but even with all that, my interest didn't stick.
Fighting games just aren't my thing. It's like, "Hey, want to play pretty much any other violent game, but with everything except for the fights cut out, padded with intro and ending animations, and most of the time, there's only five or six of them before the story ends?"
You are indeed wrong, both because 'enjoyable' is insanely subjective and because there aren't a lot of FPSs I'd recommend, either.
Speaking of lewd humor, there's a series I recommend called Shimoneta: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn't Exist. In a future Japan, all immoral and perverted material is banned. To enforce this, everyone has to wear collars that pick up on specific phrases, and bracelets that detect wrist movements.
Combating this tyranny is the panty terrorist Blue Snow. She goes around spreading lewd material in protest of these regulations. The main character gets pulled into these antics, despite trying to be a moral, upstanding citizen.
It's a pretty funny because everyone grew up so sheltered that they're oblivious to even basic sex ed. The token genius girl thinks she's on to something big when she theorizes that 'cucumbers' might have something to do with where babies come from. I'm serious.
It's also amusing seeing the extreme reactions to Blue Snow's antics. For instance, she hijacks a school program and shows video footage of two crickets grinding, while she makes dirty noises in the background. Naturally, the students start feeling odd and aroused, but they have no idea why.
So, yeah, it has nothing to do with Magical Girls, but it's a run romp regardless.