I just realized today that I never plundered the second Maken Ki series, so that's what I spent this evening on.

It's a really tasteless series, in nearly every way. No one would accuse the first season of being a good show, but at least they tried. There was a canon, and a fairly large amount of back story that explained why all the powers came in only a small number of flavors (with a couple notable exceptions: Takeru and Kodama). And there was a genuine story being told, and real character development. Plus absurd amounts of fan service and a lot of harem hijinks.

Yeah, it pandered, but it was also trying to tell a story. It was a really crappy story, but at least it was there.

The second series was done by a different studio. They kept the character designs and the art for the school, plus certain details about the main characters (i.e. their powers), and completely discarded everything else. They also redesigned Takeru, the male lead. His power is reliable and not noteworthy, and he no longer wears glasses. But the whole rationale for how there were a limited number of kinds of powers went out the window and they started tossing in a whole pile of new ones. Plus there isn't any long term story; it's all pretty much villain-of-the-week, with even more ridiculous amounts of fan service.

I used a BD rip, and there were a few images I wanted to use but just couldn't allow myself to. Even so I wanted to post them, so NSFW below the fold.

Sigh, no, I can't use locker room pictures.

This one is borderline, but I decided to use it:

There's an episode full of cosplay, and I spotted quite a few things I recognized. The monsters were from Zombie, and I saw the Twin Angels, and Strike Witches, and characters from Upotte, and several others. Plus, the three main girls from Mondaijitachi.

The convention gets attacked and "Kurousagi" gets MCSA'ed.

I find myself imagining the MK2 director thinking, "OK, Mondaijitachi director, if you don't have the guts to show her to the audience, by damn I'll do it for you!"

This one is questionable, too, but I'm going to use it:

I figure that out of nearly 4000 images I can get away with a small number that really push the limit. But not this one:

NO, no, nononono...

Anyway, I ended up with 106 images, but some of them I can't use.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Cheesecake at 09:53 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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