The Mighty GONZO Has Fallen
Man, GONZO used to be an animation studio I respected for quality animation and pretty sick action. A glance at their works list some of my favorite shows: Full Metal Panic, Hellsing, Basilisk, and Speed Grapher. They're even the studio behind the recent hit Afro Samurai. It seems though, that they have fallen really far recently. Apparently, making quality action shows doesn't pay the bills anymore and that is the only way I can rationalize them making such crap.
A large portion of their most recent work includes heavy fan service shows like Rosario + Vampire and now, Strike Witches. What I like about Rosario + Vampire is that it doesn't try to be more than what it is: a show all about fan service. It starts up and then dishes out 20 minutes of jiggly boobs and nose bleeds. It angers me that GONZO produces it but at least their not trying to waste the time of people looking for action.
Strike Witches on the other hand makes me a little more upset. It's fan service but it disguises itself with quality animation, superb coloring and effects, large guns, and big explosions. It is everything I want in an action show. And then they add in cutesy loli characters with stupid cat ears and tails. It's like they speaking directly to me. GONZO is saying: "Yeah, we can do what you want, in fact look, we can do it quite exceptionally but you know what? Screw you, take these loli girls running around in underwear!" And I'm like OMGWTFBBQ, I can't believe this is happening.
I want to say, well there are still really good studios out there making quality work but BONES doesn't always deliver with Soul Eater, Sword of the Stranger was a one-time thing and truly great shows like Death Note and Full Metal Alchemist only come around every so often.
The state of anime is so bad right now, Code Geass R2 and Macross Frontier have their flaws but there is literally nothing else to watch so I can't just go around discounting shows. Man, I can't wait for Entourage to start back up -- they always deliver. *knock on wood*