Clichés make a show boring. The more clichéd a story is, the less interesting and enjoyable it becomes. But my theory is that this relationship only holds true until you hit a certain magical event horizon where the laws of the universe break apart, one gets divided by zero and clichés become art.

How people react when I tell them I enjoyed IS

Infinite Stratos was my guilty pleasure from last season. I actually caught the last episode in Japan last month and have since read volumes 4-6 of the light novels, picking up from where the anime leaves off. Hence, I speak on good authority when I say that IS is one huge clichéfest. But for some reason, it’s enjoyable.

Only in anime: girls fight to feed you food

The basic premise of IS is one of the oldest stories ever told by anime: some lucky bastard ends up in a situation where he is constantly surrounded by sex-deprived girls who lust for the first man they bump into in the hallway. The inclusion of fighting mecha is initially reminiscent of Sakura Wars, but the storytelling is closer to Tenchi Muyo.

Hey wasn’t this from Gundam 00?

The Chosen One

In the story, IS are personalized powered armour suits, equipped with insanely powerful weapons ripped straight from the Gundam multiverse that — for very feebly conceived reasons — are not used for warfare but given to teenagers for unspecified purposes that no one really bothers explaining. They can only be piloted by girls, except for the one single exception, chosen by the almighty plot device, that is the main character, Ichika Orimura. As a science fiction, IS is pretty terrible, so it’s a good thing that the author is not trying too hard to make it one.

Spot the tsundere

The cool part about the character interactions is the fact that almost all the heroines are tsundere! Okay, it sounds lame when I articulate it in words, but really it is an impressive feat. Probably.

Of the five female IS pilots chasing after Ichika, only one can be categorically excluded from the tsundere classification, while each of the remaining four represents a different sub-division of tsundere. I am pretty sure making 80% of the characters tsundere violates some kind of international convention governing harem anime. This is either a work of madness or genius.

How people react to IS‘ storytelling

Just to be clear, the story is absolutely terrible. But the story is really not that important when it comes to having a good time with IS. You must enjoy the characters and relish the ridiculous situations they create when they get together. It’s one of those shows.

Of course, such a formula only works well for some quick laughs. The lack of an engaging story is definitely unsustainable in the long run.

Tatenashi Sarashiki is introduced in Vol. 5

The light novels injected life into the post-anime story by introducing a new character, Tatenashi Sarashiki (the playful but capable head of the student council), into the mix, hence covering the previously unoccupied teasing-senpai (i.e. Tama-nee) spot, but it is clear that constantly introducing new characters is not a viable long-term solution to generate interest. The author does take a huge step in advancing the overarching story in Volume 6, but so far it has failed to impress.

Beach episode: the forward pass of harem anime

But for the length of 12 episodes, the formula works just fine. In fact, the anime’s excellent pacing is almost sublime in its execution, like the well-timed punchlines of a skilful comedian. I was particularly impressed by episode 9, the fan-service episode, where the writer has somehow managed to fit an unbelievable amount of character and visual fan-service into one tight 20-minute package. That is truly the work of artisans.

So much armour and yet so little is covered

The animation and art quality is also surprisingly decent and consistent across the 12 episodes, all things considered, especially when you compare it to the typical cookie-cutter low-budget adapted-from-game titles found in great abundance in the same genre. Okay, maybe my bar was just set very low.

Ultimately, it takes a particular kind of mindset to get into IS. In my case, I started with very low, almost non-existent, overall expectations and found myself liking the characters, hence a good story was never within my range of considerations and its absence was not disconcerting. It also helps a great deal if you love tsundere, because the show is full of them… XD

More screencaps

Ichika’s teacher/sister is kind of tsundere

As IS technology advances, the skin exposure increases

The kendo-girl childhood-friend tsundere

The twin-tail childhood-friend Chinese tsundere

The twin-drill refined-lady British tsundere

The stoic tough-yet-naive flat-chested German tsundere

Three tsundere caught in an infinite loop of mutual contempt

Tsundere rule: smiles like this are usually followed by swift violence

Possibly the boss character of some fantasy RPG

Floating shoulders, how do they work?

This is a job for Admiral Ackbar’s brother

Some kind of futuristic mating ritual

I think this is what people call a reach around?

Okay so this is my favourite character in the show…

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Unlimited?! That’s over 9000!

Okay not twin drill. More like quad drill. It’s the future

Bunny ears…

How people react when I told them I was going to Tokyo last month

Eye-patch moé?

Mecha designs in the IS universe are often suspiciously convenient…

tl;dr version: Infinite Stratos is for people who appreciate the finer subtleties of tsundere.