It’s been an interesting week to be an anime fan, thanks to American streaming company Funimation’s sudden cancelation of one of the more colorful anime shows to come out of Japan: Ishuzoku Reviewers, or Interspecies Reviewers. It’s the story of several adventurers living in an isekai world populated with elves, fairies, orcs, angels and all other manner of magical beings and monsters. The “adventuring” the characters go on is, well, visiting the so-called “succubus district” and writing Amazon-style reviews about the sex they had with the various magical prostitutes there. That’s not strange at all!
What Happened?
Funimation started live simulcasting the show a few weeks ago, and everything seemed fine. Then this week they abruptly announced that, after careful consideration, the show didn’t meet their exacting standards, and that they’d be halting their broadcast. Immediately the Internet erupted into an explosion of negativity against the company, with users on Twitter and YouTube venting about how badly Funi has handled the situation and how disrespectfully they’d treated their fans.
I’m going to defend Funimation just a bit, for a few reasons
- First, they probably had to bid on the anime sight unseen in a highly competitive process, while the series was still in planning stages. Even if they researched the property by reading the manga — by female artist Amahara — the fact that there is no sex depicted for the “review scenes” might have made them assume the show was going to be just a fun monster girl series with a heightened level of sexual jokes.
- Honestly, there’s never been an anime quite like this. We all know of rare anime series that blazed a completely original trail when they first came out (Kiss x Sis, KNJ, Yosuga no Sora and Shimoneta come to mind). Ishuzoku Reviewers is another purely original anime concept, but it goes beyond anything Funimation could have reasonably foreseen. As many have pointed out, they licensed a mainstream ecchi series but got a full-bore hentai delivered instead.
- In a way, Funi is at least being honest enough to say they don’t want to make a “4Kids” style censored version, so ditching the broadcast might be the best option. Maybe they can somehow ensure that a proper uncensored version gets released on Blu-ray so fans can collect it?
Fans Are in “Rage Mode”
One thing that’s unfortunate is that fans are currently doing what they usually do on the Internet, getting on the “outrage bandwagon” against Funimation, whether they were even watching the show or not, and bringing up every one of the company’s past mistakes (which all companies make). I think that forming “online rage mobs” is the worst thing we can do as fans. It’s much better to think of ways we can bring a positive outcome instead of letting other fans’ anger affect us beyond what is reasonable.
There’s one benefit for the Japanese creators: the show is all but guaranteed to explode in popularity thanks to its being pulled from distribution. This is what happens whenever a government like the U.K. issues a ban on a rock song (Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood) or a game (the Valkyrie Drive Mermaid yuri fighting game), which naturally makes fans 10x more interested in finding out what all the fuss is about. This is arguably why Star Trek became so popular: if it hadn’t been heartlessly killed by Paramount in 1969, it wouldn’t have simmered in the hearts of fans, enabling it to rise again a decade later.
So maybe being canceled by Funimation will have a silver lining!
Four Reasons You Watch Ishuzoku Reviewers
While the show isn’t for everyone, if you’re an existing fan of monster girls and isekai anime, and if you have a really open mind, you might enjoy the humor and ecchi edginess of Ishuzoku Reviewers. Here are four reasons why you should consider watching!
It subverts expectations. It’s a series about characters writing reviews of monster girl prostitutes, but it’s really about understanding our own biases and respecting each other’s opinions. The story gets started when elf Zel can’t believe that human Stunk could be attracted to a 500-year-old elf girl, while Zel thinks 50-year-old human women are the hottest thing out there. To solve the debate, they start writing reviews to see whose opinion is better, and everyone joins in. We get to experience reviews from various creatures’ points of view, like humans, halflings, elves, angels, and other races, as well as both male and female (sort of).
It’s very sex-positive. Except for the groans of the avian waitress and the hesitation of the fallen angel Crimvael (who goes through the most personal growth of any character).
It’s even a good isekai anime. The unique fantasy world is filled with lots of fresh ideas. There are different political parties for each race, for example, Orc and Demon Parties, which try to get the most votes for their platform at the upcoming election. Of course, our heroes support the Succubus Party.
It’s frigging hilarious. I had to go to the farthest room from where Mrs. J-List was sleeping to avoid waking her up with my nearly endless laughter. The OP is a parody of In The Navy by the Village People, remixed with, er, shimoneta (dirty jokes). Give it a watch and you’ll be hooked.
In the end, the new Ishuzoku Reviewers is a fun and very experimental show that should be enjoyable by fans all over the world, as long as they know what to expect ahead of time. I have compassion for the difficult position Funimation found themselves in, and I wish them well!
Will you be watching Ishuzoku Reviewers, or giving it a pass? Let us know on Twitter!
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