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Guilty Pleasures! (Sunday Sevens)

The Otaku Author Sunday Sevens Guilty Pleasures

A guilty pleasure isn’t something that you are ashamed of or feel guilt over. It’s something that you know is guilty of something, but you’re willing to overlook that because you enjoy it. Anyhow, these are my guilty pleasures!

Guilty Pleasures!

I’ve spent a while thinking about the concept of a guilty pleasure. There are plenty of things that I enjoy that could be considered guilty pleasures, although I feel no guilt or shame about liking them. It wasn’t until I watched The Island of Giant Insects that it finally clicked. I wasn’t the guilty one in this relationship. The Island of Giant Insects was guilty. Guilty of lazy storytelling and hitting all the tropes and cliches, but I didn’t care. I knew what it had done, but I still enjoyed it. Anyhow, in response to Yomu’s recent post – 5 More Anime Guilty Pleasures, here are seven of my guilty pleasures! Enjoy!

7. Giant Monsters

The Island of Giant Insects

Let’s get this one out of the way to begin with as I’ve already alluded to it with my comments about The Island of Giant Insects. I love anything with oversized creatures, mutated creatures, or just plain killer creatures. This love extends into live-action movies too. I know they’re stupid and usually badly written, acted, directed, voiced, whatever, but I know I can sit through most monster movies/anime and come out smiling, even if it was terrible. I’m not sure exactly what it is about this trope, but I love it.

6. Strong, Silent Characters

Vampire Hunter D

Maybe this is because of how I see myself, but I just love the character that barely says more than is absolutely necessary. I’m thinking of characters like D from Vampire Hunter D, Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star, A-ko from Project A-ko, or even Riddick from Pitch Black. I’m not one for gossip and idle chitchat so I find these characters very relatable. They’re often a bit of a loner and have some dark past that made them this way, but even when the world turns against them, they’ll just shrug and keep on fighting.

5. Nudity, no problem!

Cat Planet Cuties Nudity No Problem

Hang on, let me explain. One of my least favourite things is when a character is suddenly crippled by nudity. It could be someone else’s or their own, but the slightest hint of nudity and then collapse with shame. These characters annoy the crap out of me. I’m not sure what you would call the opposite of this, but my thoughts go to a scene in Cat Planet Cuties where two girls were having a bath and one of their alien robots was abducted. Now, in most anime, they would run outside, realise they were still naked, and collapse into a trembling heap of blushing and moaning. Not this time, they hopped onto a motorbike and gave chase, completely naked. I don’t think there is any shame in nudity and I like it when characters act in that manner.

4. Strong Female Characters

Akame ga Kill Episode 6 Leone

I love girls that can hold their own. Growing up, I saw a lot of that with the likes of Princess Leia and Red Sonja. I’m proud to say that I have never grown out of that. The thing with this category is that they don’t need to be warriors like Red Sonja. I confident female character that knows what she wants and will do whatever it takes to achieve that is just as appealing. I’m not a fan of damsels in distress or indecisive characters. They come across as too needy and demanding. I like girls that can kick ass physically or metaphorically.

3. Zombies

Highschool of the Dead Episode 12 Zombies at the Gate

I literally cannot get enough of the undead. If it has zombies in it, I am there. I’ve done a five-kilometre obstacle course with zombies twice and would do another in a heartbeat. Many of my favourite stories in any and all mediums involve zombies in some way or another. Highschool of the Dead – my favourite anime. Dawn of the Dead – one of my favourite movies. World War Z – my favourite audiobook. A song of Ice and Fire – one of my favourite fantasy novel. Again, I’m not sure exactly why, but I get a real kick out of watching the world crumble and seeing the average person having to fight for their lives as those around them turn into zombies and try to eat them!

2. Swords

Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon II Episode 9 Aisha with her big Sword

I grew up on stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The idea of honour and chivalry really stuck with me and I always saw swords as a part of that. Then, I discovered the samurai and their way of life just added to my interest. Finally, Star Wars showed up and that pretty much finished it for me. There would never be a more classy weapon than a sword. Just like with zombies, most of my favourite characters are proficient swordsmen. See my Seven Swords! post for even more details!

1. Strong, silent female leads who fight zombies and/or monsters with swords in the nude!

Highschool of the Dead Episode 7 Humvee and Saeko

Now, this might be a little bit too niche for most people, but this just about sounds like the greatest thing ever. This probably has something to do with Saeko Busujima being my favourite anime character of all time and I’m just grateful that someone took the time to address my needs. Admittedly, I have written a series of novellas which pretty much falls into this exact category… coincidence… I’ll let you decide.

So, there you have it. These are seven of my guilty pleasures and if I’m being honest, there are many, many more. I’m a big fan of story structure and spend a lot of time analysing what works and what doesn’t, but I also acknowledge that sometimes all it takes is a giant insect or a girl with a sword. So, what are your guilty pleasures?

Other posts in the series

6 Comments

  1. “my thoughts go to a scene in Cat Planet Cuties where two girls were having a bath and one of their alien robots was abducted.”

    That and the subsequent chase scene is probably my favorite scene in Cat Planet Cuties!

    • I feel like a rewatch is coming. Just finding an image for this post was enough to make me put it back on my to watch list.

  2. Dumb Girls are my guilty pleasure.. well not like stupid .. but Ditzy like Ako Tamamki from Netgame. Maple from Bofuri, Mako from Kill la Kill. You know.. airheads who look at the world in their own simple way.

    Big beam attacks like in Dragon Ball as well.

    And Kawaii sentence endings like a girl going Desu-Nee .. or Kyun at the end of every sentence! Gets me every time!

    • Awesome. I loved the way Maple just stumbled her way to practically becoming the ultimate game boss.

      Who doesn’t love big attacks?

      I also like when they make some super cute noises too.

  3. My two biggest ones are magical girls and superheroes (although, these days, superheroes are held in higher regard…). In a very loose sense, anime has no shortage of both (and technically a big chunk of magical girls are superheroes), although I do admit I don’t keep up with the DCEU/Marvel Universe as much as a self-declared fan of superheroes should. To this end, I will admit I would prefer quirky spins on superheroes rather than seeing all the tropes played straight, so Deadpool > Spiderman > Batman > Superman.

    As an overarching topic to magical girls and superheroes, transformations in general, although transforming mechs are another matter and I’ve never really gotten into tokusatsu. I admit I have checked out some very questionable things for that guilty pleasure though…mostly semi-obscure manga, mostly of the gender-bending (or similar) type.

    • I’ve got a soft spot for superheroes too, although I’ve been finding I prefer the more obscure types of late too. Films like Chronicle or Push have been more enjoyable than the big name movies.

      I’ve been really enjoying the darker magical girl stuff of late, particularly Magical Girl Apocalypse which is completely bonkers.

      It’s funny what we’ll put up with if it has certain aspects that we enjoy in it.

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