While we’re on the topic, let’s not forget how comparing what was meant to be an hour-long (perhaps one and a half, two?) play to a television series adaptation spanning a likely 26 episodes, is ridiculous. I mean, ridiculous on a scale of comparing all twelve volumes of Death Note to the two 45+ minute movie adaptations and gnashing your teeth while going “THEY TOTALLY SHAFTED THE FANS, I WANT MY MELLO/NEAR/OBSCURE SIDE CHARACTER/ANIME-EXCLUSIVE YAOI FOOT WASHING SCENE”. So let’s not get into that.

Since we’re going for the jugular, why not stop too with the Gonzo bashing for a second to realise that, shock and horror: judging an anime based on its predecessors’ performance, and the animation studio responsible for said predecessors, is pretty dumb. No, maybe exceedingly blind is a better way of putting it. If you thought the KyoAni fans were bad enough, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a victim of shoddy plot, form over function, exceedingly short-sighted expectations, and jaded cynicism — the Gonzo hater.

I insist on coming clean about this: till a week ago I was one of those elitist bastards who wouldn’t touch eroge adaptations even if you paid me. Well, alright, maybe I would, but I always had a prejudice against them. Point being? The concept of eroges/visual novels/dating sims didn’t appeal to me at all. To put it crudely, they always seemed to me like a Japanese amalgam of Choose Your Own Adventure and Mills & Boon. It was that bad.

The logic behind the aversion? Pretty simple — it was how sex and a decent story were mutually exclusive. Or how the sex always came first and the story second. Oh, don’t tell me — they made the story first and then tried to cram in the sex later. I can imagine it already, some overweight, middle-aged salaryman looking over the shoulder of his Chinese sweatshop programmer, going “What do you MEAN they can’t have sex now?” Assuming then, that the eroge is in all respects created from the ground up with equal allowance to both sex and story doesn’t make it any better — just less pathetic, like comparing a home-made porno to a professional one.