WHEN SUPERNATURAL BATTLES BECAME COMMONPLACE

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NOVEL ComedyWhen Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace
MANGA ComedyInou Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de
ANIME ActionKill la Kill

REVIEWS

• 

  tokaidesu

  70/100
  Disregard the tags and enjoy a heartwarming coming-of-age story

  Verdict: InoBato is held back a bit by fanservice and some occasional confusion, but the great character writing and voice acting performances make it a delight to watch. The premise doesn’t really do it justice.

  InoBato was an interesting watch in more ways than one. Like how I assume most people hear of the show, I was exposed to Saori Hayami’s infamous “I don’t understand” rant, which I maintain as the best bit of voice acting I’ve heard. So I finally decided I wanted to watch the show and understand the context.

  The show spends the first 10 minutes convincing you that Jurai Andou is an insufferable person. His chuuni act isn’t even genuine; he knows that it isn’t real. I was deadest on hating this show based solely on the first 10 minutes, but I was wrong. I think if you take Anilist at face value, that this is a fantasy/comedy/romance/sol/supernatural anime, that you’re missing out on what I think the best part is.

  InoBato is very quick to let you know of the harem elements, and there’s no immediate clear answer to why everyone would catch romantic feelings for Andou. That ends up being a recurring theme throughout the show, that they’ll give you the information before the context, which does make for some awkward moments. However, the shoe drops in the second episode and things begin making sense. Andou is far from being defined by his chuuni traits and instead proves himself to be emotionally mature beyond what you would expect from a typical high schooler. He is a great friend who knows what to say and when to say it, often disguising a mature attempt at resolving an emotional dilemma with chuuni nonsense. He also knows how to take responsibility for his own actions, and is quick to try and resolve the issues through communication.

  These positives extend to the rest of the main cast as well. The literature club in InoBato includes Tomoyo Kanzaki, Hatoko Kushikawa and Sayumi Takanashi, as well as elementary schooler Chifuyu Himeki. All of them are demonstrated to be great friends with one another, and despite the inherent love rivalry over Andou, have no issues going to each other with their own problems. The ability to communicate their issues and move past them together puts InoBato ahead of a lot of RomComs that are far more popular. If anything, it feels more like a coming-of-age story than any of the designations it has. The dialogue is well-written and makes it clear that each character is trying to move forward in their own way.

  The ”fairy war” subplot that tries to get the main cast involved isn’t particularly interesting, though it does provide a means to progress the character relationships. This does bring me to probably my only real issue with the show, which is that the show seems more focused on impactful, emotional scenes than how they should be laid out. Take the aforementioned “I don’t understand” scene, which in isolation is a phenomenal scene where Hatoko is calling out Andou’s chuuni nonsense for what it is. But there was no tension regarding his chuuni habits leading up to this point, and the entire “I don’t understand” moniker was based in him trying to hide a friend’s secret. By the end of the episode, you understand where it came from, but if I didn’t know it was coming at the time, it would have felt out of place entirely. But at the same time, the ordering of events in the episode couldn’t really have been switched for plot purposes. It’s a dilemma where the author opted for the more impactful scene, which I can’t say I 100% disagree with.

  Aside from that issue and a good bit of unnecessary fanservice, InoBato is a heartwarming watch that I could have seen myself truly falling in love with if I was younger.

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• 

  ThePieGod7

  54/100
  That other Trigger show

  InoBato, InoBato, InoBato. What else is there to be said about InoBato? Well, probably the title. When Supernatural Battles Become Commonplace!, as the english localization puts it, or Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de, or again Inou Battle, or even more simply InoBato. Gotta get used to conjunctions if you want to be into light novels, I suppose.

  Aaaanyway. I mentioned this before at one point, but the thing that got me to pay attention to this show… well, at all was the studio behind it: Trigger. Nowadays, Trigger is known for being Imaishi and Nakashima revived, some of Gainax’s best brought back from the dead and working on industry-moving projects, independent of restrictions and aiming to make their talent shine as much as possible. And while that may be true these days, sometimes, Trigger gotta pay the bills baby. Introducing Inou Battle, one of their earliest shows as a company; their first TV anime to come out after Kill la Kill, in fact. This is an adaptation of a light novel, one that isn’t particularly popular to my understanding, but it did at least last fairly long, up until 2018 (And the official English translation for the last volume actually came out last year).

  That’s enough background info. There’s no way I’d watch 12 episodes of a company’s throwaway project just out of novelty. What’s this show actually about? Well, let me answer your question with another question. What would you do if you got superpowers?

  We live in a world that doesn’t need saving from some physical existential threat. There are no super villains. Hell, it’s not like bank robberies or muggings are even that common. Does the world really need superheroes?

  Well, maybe you could join the military, but that’s sorta beside my point. Superpowers would hardly set you apart from the average person too much. As a matter of fact, it’s possible your life would hardly change at all.

  And that’s the philosophy behind Inou Battle… Five students inhabiting the literature club inexplicably gain superpowers, and have the trajectory of their lives… go completely unaltered! Instead, they live carrying these secrets as normal students, but with a small twist… their chuunibyo habits have suddenly become validated. How are you supposed to pretend to be a normal person concealing their inner darkness when you can actually stop time, or control elements?

  … Hmm, to be honest, I think I did too good a job pitching it. At its core, Inou Battle is a harem romcom with a superpower-battling theme as set dressing, with its best aspect being its surprisingly poignant and touching main character, who larps as an agent of evil to hide the fact that he’s a good person. Other than that, we have all the classics, let’s run through them: Tomoyo Kanzaki, tsundere. Hatoko Kushikawa, the airhead and best girl. Sayumi Takanashi, seitokaicho-esque girl. Chifuyu Himeki, kuudere elementary schooler. Oh yes, and they all have super powers… Though the main dude’s is practically useless. Known as Jurai Andou, he’s conversely the most hardcore chuuni of the group, and as such, is way more interested in these powers than any of the girls. He even names them!

  In that sense, it’s kind of an interesting hook. Five students, all on varying levels of the chuuni-scale, have the powers they so long for forced upon them, yet they’re all so painfully average that they don’t think to do anything other than to continue on with their trifling, love-polygon-obeying lives… All while the biggest chuunibyo of them all is gnawing at the hem, white-knuckling to join his peers, but he can’t!

  All the while, you get this feeling… There’s this mystery. Something behind the scenes. Where did they receive these powers from? Who’s this strange, bummy guy who’s still a chuuni at heart despite being way too old for it? Who told the student council president about all these superpowered losers in this club? And who are all the shadowy figures we see in the OP?

  Well, unfortunately, InouBattle doesn’t play up the mystery aspect. It’s a harem romcom at heart, and it likes to really stick to its roots. And… yeah, it’s one of those shows. Fanservice aplenty, some will-they, won’t-they, even if the show sells us the main pairing really hardly it’ll still give us plenty of time to ogle Mr. Andou hanging out with all the other girls crushing on him, including a couple elementary schoolers(?). In one of the most baffling scenes in the show, we see Andou professing his status as a lolicon to a mutual, much younger friend — A scene so out of place, it’s actually COMPLETELY changed in the dub, something I checked out of curiosity.

  But honestly, I don’t know if these are criticisms. Not in and of themselves. I’ve seen enough anime to the point where a very questionable age gap isn’t really something that’ll knock off a couple points off a show. It’s more that InouBattle squanders its own potential as a series. There are a few scenes here and there — I feel like they kind of peddle off near the middle of the show — Where it’s a normal comedy. You’ve got all the setup; The main character is a good punching bag because of his useless powerset, a couple others who enable him, the responsible girl who kinda hates his guts, and a little kid who this is all definitely a bad influence upon. There’s a scene about a misinterpreted love letter, about being a poser with a guitar, and sometimes… It just feels like a good old comedy anime. Later on this feeling disappears as it fades into the harem romcom miasma, the clouds and smokescreens of a more interesting show falling apart to reveal bikini shots in pool episodes, a festival date.

  I don’t know if there’s really a specific point this show goes from half comedy, half superpower battler, to harem, but it’s pretty early. Once you get the club’s charming dynamic down, it doesn’t mind transitioning into this second, different show, stringing you along with just enough touching, kinda poignant moments that still manage to relate to that initial hook of this show… Why be chuunibyo? What’s wrong with being painfully average, anyway? We all grow up, have fun, fall in love, so why do we want to cling to this childish desire to be cool?

  Okay, okay. If you know anything about this show, I know you’re just begging me to talk about it. You know, the scene. It’s THE scene, after all, the only reason most people would ever give this show any thought over a decade after it premiered. It’s got over half a million views on Crunchyroll’s Youtube page, it’s one of Saori Hayami’s best performances! You gotta talk about it!

  Well, according to Anilist official rules, I’m not really allowed to talk about spoilers, but there’s another review here that mentions the scene. Plus, I mean, it’s THE scene, right? You gotta talk about it.

  Honestly, I wasn’t too impressed with it? Don’t get me wrong, it’s very well directed. And as I mentioned, it’s a STELLAR performance from Saori Hayami as Hatoko, likely some of her best work even some 12 years after it aired. But weirdly, it works better OUT of context than it does in context. When you’re given a really brief summary of the show (Briefer than I gave, like Crunchyroll show description length) And see this scene play out, it’s more effective that way. Like, wow, this is what the show’s about? This is the main conflict these guys have to deal with? That’s pretty deep. And like, it is! But when you see it in the episode, it just feels like a breakdown… Worse, it’s handwaved away the very next episode! This really pressed some buttons for me. Why bother creating this character conflict just to ignore it so soon?

  No matter what way you look at it, being unable to understand your friend and feeling them slowly drift away from you is a more interesting conflict than wanting to ‘win’ him over before other girls. But it's just not there. Inou Battle gets caught up within itself, the vibes and plot points all criss-crosing until anything interesting is asterisked with an interrupted declaration of love, a big red STOP sign designed to take you right out of the story and back onto your chair, reminding you you're watching an anime. Inou Battle can't escape itself; It can be interesting, it can be funny, it can be emotionally intelligent but never for too long before it goes back to being itself. There's a moment near the beginning of the show that I think kind of outsmarts itself. The girls of the literature club are talking amongst themselves, reminiscing how Andou told them never to mess with life, or reviving the dead, even if it's within the jurisdiction of their own powers. The show uses this as a moment to reaffirm the girls' relationship with Andou — He doesn't want us overwhelmed with the potential of our own abilities, so he's a swell guy! But it's a bit deeper than that, no? Andou is limiting them, in a sense, preventing them from going too far. I suppose the show kind of does the same thing to itself, in a way. Maybe I'm just rambling.

  That takes me back to the Trigger of it all. Why did they make this? Well, ‘cuz they needed the money, I guess. But they didn’t half-ass it! The animation really ramps up at times, other times, they’re lazy in really clever ways. The OP especially really draws me in… There’s a bunch of limited animation, but when the music ramps up, the sakuga really delivers, a short snapshot of one of the famed supernatural battles taking place between Hatoko, and Chifuyu riding a big Inferno Cop guy. It speaks to me just like the OP of SSSS. Gridman, which is one of my favorites. Even though that show of theirs came out much later, there’s just a similar ‘vibe’ that really haunts some of this show. Obviously, it’s not one of their best works, but they didn’t mind keeping their trademark style the whole time. There’s even a few cameos from Kill la Kill characters in the background, but weirdly, I feel like there are even more cameos from Idolm@ster characters… It sounds weird, but this show actually shared a lot of staff with the 2011 anime. And the movie was hot off the presses, too!

  But back to the main thesis. Does Inou Battle fall apart all at once? Maybe not. There are hints of a touching show, hints of a funny show, hints of a cool show all rolled into one with this package. I think the episode where the curtain is pulled back, as well as the finale, are both standouts, accomplishments of good direction and a little free sample of some of that Trigger animation magic, but Inou Battle is just a little weird with when it decides to really go for hits. Ironic for a show where the theme is battling against living an average life to just be… pretty average. Doubly so, when you consider that really, it consists of both good scenes and bad scenes, so you ‘average’ it out to get that take, heh.

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