Fanbetch Reviews: School Days, Episode 1

Today's Rejection Letter Recipe: "It's Just Not What We're Looking For" a la mode

1. Take one rejection letter

2. Shove in bowl of ice cream

3. Eat

---ooo---

Imagine everything wrong about dating sims combined with everything wrong about high school comedy, and then make it written by the most elaborate troll in history. Now imagine that troll thought anime fans were all heavily lobotomized, give that troll a very unhealthy fixation with women's breasts, legs, and buttocks, and bring it to write fresh out of watching the Star Wars prequels.There's something really cheep about taking shots at bad books, shows, and games, especially on the internet, but this is something that needs to be addressed. I consider it a PSA. The subject of this review is probably the most famous good-freaking-horrible anime in existence: School Days.

This twelve-episode anime is nothing short of concentrated ignorance. I swear that this show has made me stupider by watching it. It took me two weeks just to be able to form coherent thoughts again. And if you still don't understand how bad this anime is, it has the honor of being the most popular anime on YouTube. Just. Let that sink in a moment.

Speaking of trolls, our hero of this story is a high school nobody named Mako-AH OH MY GOD LOOK AT THOSE FACES IN THE BACKGROUND WHAT THE HELL

Sorry just had a THEY DO NOT HAVE EYES THAT IS JUST TERRIFYING anyway. Our "hero" of this story is named this bland yet still effeminate looking Makoto. Spoiler alert: this child will become nothing short of the heavyweight champion of asshats. I mean, even more so than harem comedy leads. I have never seen the portrayal of someone so naturally, inherently, and aggressively jerkalicious in my entire life. And I've watched the later seasons of House MD. As you can plainly see, he's a single brunette nerdy loser who's never been within ten feet of a girl in his entire life, so you can bet your ass that all the pretty young high school girls are going to want nothing more than take a romp in his girl shorts. Because sexually inexperienced, nerdy perverts drive the ladies wild in high school.

Since this is a harem comedy in Japan, he falls in love with the most gentle, beautiful, kind of doormatty, big-chested woman he can find on his local subway route-Katsura Kotonoha. Makoto, like every mentally sound and healthy human being, expresses his admiration for Kotonoha by creepily staring at her on the bus every day. Never talks to her, never says hello or introduces himself, just stares at her jugmarines. And take secret pictures of her on his cell phone. Man, why don't kids just have the balls to ask a girl out these days? It's the snorkleblacking 21st Century! I mean, I was very prompt in asking my girlfriend out after...admiring her in secret for…a year…and…a half it's different for me I'm the delicate type.

Surgeon General's Warning: Do not place School Days directly in front of any mirror or other reflective device.

Now we meet part two of the reason why everything is about to go wrong-Sekai Saionji. She's the other half cliche Japanese schoolgirl love interest-tough but indecisive, tomboyish but not so much it would mar her girlish cuteness, and the more she spews "baka", punches him, and insists she doesn't want to be with him, the more it means she's totally into him. By their powers combined, they form a singularity of 90% of everything that's wrong with high school romantic comedies.

I'd normally suggest such obvious cliches would prove to be a deconstruction of the genre, but this show is so but I am painfully reluctant to give that show any kind of credit. Not because of the existence or lack of creativity, coherent story telling, or effort put into characterization and development. Really, it's because the show annoys me that much. Yes, I am spitefully withholding an English Major view of this show. Anyone who knows me should be trembling in their boots right now. Welcome to School Days, bitches.

So the two bicker and pass notes back and forth like a bunch of middle school girls, and uh-oh, Sekai found out about Makoto's creepy cell phone photo. She asks if it's the recent cell phone love charm going around: if you take a cell phone picture of the one you have feelings for and nobody finds out, your love will be fulfilled (which sounds just ridiculous enough and sounding just enough like encouraging stalking to be popular). Makoto insists that Saionji needs to keep her googly animu eyes in her own business, but being the little spitfire/source of romantic conflict, she refuses and continues to pester him. And of course, they sit next to each other, which is basically the anime equivalent of destiny grading their spinal chords together with a soldering iron.

Then we meet Maktoto's dumbass friend, Taisuke. He fills the anime cliché of the hot blooded and overly sexed best friend. Following the tradition of any man in this role, he's so engrossed in Makoto's love and sex life that the only reasonable explanation is homoeroticism. This guy in particular gives off an uncomfortable aura similar to Brucie from Grand Theft Auto 4. Any character fitting this roll has the potential to either be the best or the most annoying character in the show. However, in order to really win over the audience's heart in a harem anime, the best friend needs to be boisterous and encouraging, but also humorous, relaxed, and with an odd sort of mature sophistication. And Taisuke is...yeah. No.

Which is totally not overcompensating or everything.

So Saionji takes Makoto to the roof since she has the keys to do so (giving a horny teenage girl the keys to the entire rooftop, yep, that's thinking ahead), and tells Makoto she's become BFFs with Kotonoha, and intends to help Makoto hook up with Kotonoha in any way she can. This also begins something I unintentionally love about this show: Kotonoha's ambiguous facial expressions. I don't know what it is about them, but trying to intemperate them is my favorite thing. This one's easy though-why dis woman shovin' her boobs in my boobs yo.

Makoto a complete buffoon, is so worried about his secret slipping that he shoves Saionji into the gate in the most brutish and suggestive way possible. I think this calls for the start of a meter to record how many brutish, unwarranted, cruel, and generally assholish moves will be preformed in this anime. I think I'll call it the Fool Meter.

Fool Meter: 1

I am willing to bet money that we'll crack 100 by the time this show is over. You think it's impossible with it just being twelve episodes but trust me. This is the most intelligent of the episodes. And I can already feel my brain starting to atrophy.

Saionji assures Makoto that she didn't tell anyone, and it's back to doing stupid anime things. And I'm seriously not kidding about the excessive number of boob, gam, and butt shots in this show-the ratio between them and seeing the character's face is about 1:1. I'm trying to be dignified and edit out as many as they can, but I swear, sometimes the story events make them completely unavoidable. I don't even know if that camera angle is physically possible.

Oh yeah, and the human being attached to those legs is Setsuna, the world's punishment for anyone who ever had a thing for preteen girls (even though she's the exact same age as everyone else in the class. Which makes the implications so much better). She's supposed to be straight up fanservice, I guess, but I can't help but look at her and be chilled to the bone. I mean look at those blood-red eyes. Look at those baby-killing bangs. Look at that hair ribbon which looks like it was one last, desperate attempt to make this girl look cute and not like she'd crush your conscious sanity just by thinking about it. And she's always just staring and never talking. Gyaaaaa.

Yes, Taisuke actually calls Makoto to frantically ask if he's having sex. Right at that moment. The hilarity of this on its own really deserves no comment, but I'm having a blast thinking up the possible situations that could have possibly made him want to ask that out of the blue. I mean, when does your train of thought ever meander to whether or not your friends are getting their jollies on right at that second, let alone be strong enough to want to call them up and ask them?

I'd slap a point on the Fool Meter for this, but I'm better than that. In my eyes, Taisuke is the Fool Meter.

We then get to see the master of information gathering Saionji is. She reports to Makoto that she likes to read (which he already figured out), she loves to eat noodles, and she has a big chest. I can't believe that's all she managed to get from a whole class talking to her and then a whole phone conversation that night. What were they doing the rest of the time, playing tic-tac-toe and "you hang up"? That's abysmal spy skills and communication skills. But the "big news" she manages to bring to Makoto is that they all are going to eat with each other on the roof. Makoto is fully aware that his charm and sex appeal is zero, so he's naturally terrified to meet Kotonoha. But since Sekai is the tomboyish and belligerent love interest, she drags him by the face all the way up to the roof. She insists that Kotonoha is interested in someone, but she doesn't really have a genuine crush, so Makoto needs to seize the day while he still can.

Kotonoha is very polite, and offers them homemade sammiches of which one of the primary ingredients seems to be strange, green goo. Which you would think would be your first sign to take them with a bit of caution, but neither Makoto nor Saionji see anything wrong with it in the slightest, and both of them take a huge honking bite out of it.

Fool Meter: 2

This, my friends, is anime cooking at its finest. I don't care if it's your first time cooking Kotonoha; my dog can probably make a passable sammich if she put her tiny mind to it. There are preciously few opportunities to screw up when you're just putting meat, cheese, and sliced vegetables between two slices of bread. I know the temptation to experiment with the household mysterious green goo is a mighty siren, but nobody's going to hold it against you if you spare that venture for round two. But Makoto, once again having the dating savvy of an artichoke, stuffs the whole box down his fat face. While I hate Makoto and all he stands for, even I have to give him some cred for taking all that to spare a girl's feelings. So I'll save slapping a point on the Fool Meter, my brother. This time.

WHAT A DREAMBOAT

Sekai leaves so that Makoto can work his nonexistent magic, and many a stale, awkward anime conversation ensues. Kotonoha mentions that Makoto is different than she expected and…that's pretty much it. So I guess everyone on this show has abysmal conversation skills. I've seen some pretty forced couples in anime, but jeepers, this is just insane. These two have so little common ground I'm surprised one of them couldn't handle the other's gravitational field of awkward and imploded. But because Kotonoha either has the patience of a saint or the genre savvy of a concrete block, she actually seems to find Makoto endearing, or at least amusing.

So after lunch, Makoto decides to suddenly grow a spine and admit that he likes Kotonoha. This is a fairly significant plot development, as well as a pretty significant turn of events and how Makoto's character operates. But the cameraman seems to have other things on his mind, so he does a slow, sexy, full-body pan up Sekai's body when she's wearing nothing but a button-down shirt in her bed in a position that makes her look like she's in a Covergirl ad. Which is awesome, because I can make this collection of screenshots look completely out of context to what the show is actually about.

Uuuuuh...well damn, I think I've accidentally discovered what this show's about.

Take note: the ideal place to tell someone you like them is on a scummy platform in front of a moving train surrounded by subway perverts. While I don't believe the degrading stereotypes that geeky anime fans aren't exactly smooth operators, I can certainly see how that sentiment may have emerged.

After a few gratuitous boob and butt shots, Kotonoha talks to Sekai about what happened. She also tells Sekai (and get ready for a huge shock), the guy she mentioned that she was interested in turns out to be Makoto. Of course. Turns out she could feel that someone was watching her, and when she figured it out, instead of instantly pegging him as the neurotic, gutless, ugly little creeper he is, she falls for him. So even though they know nothing about each other, don't talk to each other, and most of their relationship is rooted in passive-aggressive stalking, they're now dating.

Fool Meter: 3

So Makoto's waiting on the train, and Sekai lauds how awesome it is that he and Kotonoha are together and how proud she is of them and blah blah blah. And Makoto thanks her, as did Kotonoha previously. So Sekai is pretty much the most respected friend that either of them have.

Fool Meter: 4

So with the shock and unpredictability of a cliche marching at you down a hill in broad daylight while leading a brass bands and banging a frying pan with a wooden spoon, Sekai takes the first opportunity she has to ruin absolutely everything. With her tongue. And don't worry sports fans, we get a good, long, hearty look at her panties through the whole event.

Welcome to School Days, bitches.

---ooo---

I'll admit that this show seems pretty bland and run-of-the-mill. It's like it's more of an elaborate essay into as many cheesy rom-com cliches we can cram into thirty minutes. Even I was rolling my eyes in the non-ironic way while screen capping and writing. But I assure you, it's hilarious badness expands exponentially as time goes on. I am not going to spoil it for you, but I promise all of you, you do not know what you're getting into. Hell, I don't know what I'm getting into. I'm not kidding about the brain atrophy. My retail grunt job is more intellectually fulfilling than this. Even just remembering what is about to happen is enough to cause a forced shut down.

On the next episode, we are presented every reason why the main couple should break up (they won't), why Sekai needs to actually talk about her conflict of interest (she won't), and Makoto getting his ass handed to him by a drunk. All this and more on the next episode of Fanbetch Reviews! Stay tuned, after I try to wash out my mind with warm soap and water.

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School Days Episode 2 Review

School Days Episode 3 Review

School Days Episode 4 Review

School Days Episode 5 Review

School Days Episode 6 Review

_{School Days and all associated media is developed and copyrighted by 0verflow, with the anime produced and copyrighted by TNK. All rights reserved. And they can damn well keep it.}

The Trials of the Writer

I have officially been working at Walmart for two days, and it has only confirmed that I will go insane unless I manage to find a job I love. It doesn't help that I've discovered my position is "temporary setup", which loosely translates to "heavy box bitch". The red flag really should have come up when I had to watch three separate videos on safe lifting. Needless to say, the alarm was blaring when I was casually asked to put three air conditioner sets back on the shelf all by myself.

Anyway, to the point. The more I work, the more I have to focus on the fact that my job is merely a stepping stone to my true dream-to be a writer. Oh yes, that's the life for me! To be a smarmy, skin-so-untouched-by-natural-light-it's-translucent little glass'd nerd banging at a laptop today as a career. To actually kick back and to listen to the little voices inside my head for pay. And I'd watch the scholars find complex symbolism in my work and rub it in the face of the next generation, thus inspiring them to hate my work and write their own as a retort. And I'd watch as the beloved characters I create are worshiped creepily on the internet, and portrayed as out of character, deviant, overly-angsty lunatics in fanfiction. That is the life I aspire to. This is the world I wish to be a part of!

However! I am not so naive as to know that I have a long way to go before I could ever be in this pantheon, this elite, this heavenly sphere of rich smartasses. It's a massive, brutal road, filled with blood, sweat, and overpaid agents. There are pot holes at every corner, and it takes every little bit of free time you can spare. And you know, being a writer isn't really easy. I'm not kidding. As the title of this blog suggests, there are many massive challenges a writer must face, even outside of getting published and screaming groupies.

WALMART

As mentioned, publishing doesn't happen overnight. A newbie writer is lucky if they get their first book published within two years, and that's without a writer's inherent massive sex appeal. So a writer has to find another way to keep bread on the table, which means a writer needs at least one sucky job on the side. True, getting a sucky job to finance a better career isn't exclusive to the writing field*, but like any creative job, it's a part of the process to the point of being a rite of passage. However, if you're a writer and currently are worried about putting bread on the table, look forward to my next post plugging some excellent recipes for rejection letters.

It's sad, but every good artist, a writer included, needs to eventually look forward to working at a job that is a tad less endearing than one would hope for. On my repertoire, I have worked as a cashier, a heavy box bitch, and a bar wench. And that's just summer jobs. There's something morbidly exciting about wondering what sort of strange and unnatural job I'll get when I'm done with school and out on my own. I'm hoping for either plucky young twenty-something amateur sleuth or sky pirate. Though I'll probably end up working at Starbucks, which is almost kind of straddling the two. Especially with those new mansion with a huge inheritance secret death star kiosks.

I NEED AN EDITOR

I am not an idiot, even if I know five year olds that have a better grasp of spelling and grammar than I. I don't know what it is, but I have no eye for the mechanical aspect of writing. My loyal and beloved readers (both of them) have each found multiple typos and mistakes in my work, despite my hardest efforts to proofread and double check and spell check to my hearts content. I don't know how I've lived here all my life, spoken this language all my life, was reading by age two, writing ever since I was thirteen, and still always manage to forget how to spell "later" versus "latter". I look like I'm doing this on purpose.

If I'm going to be a writer, I definitely need an editor. Ah, that sounds so romantic. Someone who'll correct all your stupid mistakes for you. It doesn't matter if you just spit out a huge, gibbering mess with little thought or consideration, your editor will be by your side to fix up all your stupid mistakes with a bounce in his or her step and a smile on his or her face. Like a butler, or a friendly toaster oven. Mmm, I like the sound of that. But I'd think it would be hard to get someone in on that deal. I mean, do you know who Stephen King's editor is? I don't.

YOU HAVE TO WRITE ALL THE TIME

You really do. Books and articles don't write themselves. I don't know whether it's because I have a slow brain, slow fingers, or someone slapped a flux capacitor on my back again, but it takes a lot of time to write a book, or even just an article here on the blog. Certainly a lot longer than it does to think one up. I've spent the whole day on some of the these blog entries. The last Angel Food and Devil Dogs review took five or six hours to complete. Five hours is a lot of time!That's more than a season of Venture Bros dude! I barely have enough time knit, read yaoi fanfiction, and complain about how bored I am these days.

It's not that it's anything bad or anything. I love to write, so it's not that I regret spending all that time on it. But it can be a bit of a trick managing to balance it into your schedule, especially when things like going to work and actually needing to go to class get in the way. It doesn't help that I'm at a decided disadvantage by being one of the few artists out there who actually needs to sleep. I know some creative art people who can live on three hours of sleep a night, but if I don't get eight hours a pop, the nose goblins that live under my dirty clothes pile starts talking again. So I have to get used to going to bed at 10-11 PM again, which brings back uncomfortable memories of Middle and High School. And summer camp at the Y.

GENERAL INSANITY

Contrary to popular opinion, not all writers are inherently depressed, gay, or crazy. It's more of an occupational hazard. Like any good artist, a writer's job is to both represent and reflect life. And anyone who's lived life for more than five minutes is probably aware of what a massively stressful job it is. Not to mention us American writers have to do so with the English Language, the most gawrdawful cumbersome language there is. It steals words from freaking everyone, it has a million different grammatical rules, and then people go turn punctuation marks into faces. I have a hard enough time describing why The Police are awesome, and you want me to discern inter- and extra-personal cosmology? Why don't you ask me to play "Psychobilly Freakout" with my elbows and blindfolded while your at it?

Just like consorting with the dark one and full-time employment at the Gap, everyone feels the strain of writing a little differently, and everyone deals with it differently. Some people just get swallowed up and do go full-on insane, others turn to alcoholism, isolation, and chicks, or some people like me numb their personality on JRPGs and Britcoms. As for the gay, I have a lot of theories, but the most credible ones have something to do with Shakespeare and/or Microsoft Office 97.

IT'S HARD TO STAY PALE

Bloody summer. I swear, I was just outside the other day needing to warm myself up in the sun, because for some reason, they air condition the employee training room to subarctic degrees below zero. Eventually, since it is summer, I decide I start to feel a little hot, so I go inside. When I take a shower that night? Color. Freaking color. Granted, it's only like, a eensy bit and you can't even see it, but DANG. It's going to take me days to make it go away.

Writers have an image to preserve. I have no idea what it is, but I'm sure it is one. If anything else, every writer needs a visual trademark, and my brunette-to-black-hair against my whitest-kid-on-the-block skin with my monochromatic-and-sometimes-red outfits is mine. Tampering with the image of a writer violates the natural order. And even though I'm whiter than a fifties sitcom, I still have to be on constant vigilance. Doesn't help that I inherited the ability to tan at the drop of a hat from my Mom's side of the family. Needing to go outside-you continue to be the bane of my existence.

FREAKING WRITER'S BLOCK

Some people have an affinity certain good qualities in writing. Some people just seem to be really good at spelling and grammar (and in my opinion, very few people deserve a richer slap for being so...unless they want to be my editor, of course). Some people are really good at thinking interesting plots or narration. Some people have a gift at writing dialog so complex and nuanced that it makes you feel like you really are listening to people talking. Some writers are just good at that intangible, indescribable something that makes something fun to read. The nice thing about all of this is that with a little practice, everyone can get competent in these fields, and it becomes much easier to be able to summon them as time goes on. But nobody, and I mean nobody manages to go steady with inspiration.

Okay, that's not necessarily true. Like everything else, practicing thinking creatively will eventually lead to creative thoughts. The more you learn the rules, the more you learn to twist them and break them down. And yet for some, stupid reason, despite your best intentions, every once in awhile, inspiration will decide she needs to see other people, leaving you an empty mess, staring a a blank screen in Microsoft Word for the last hour or so. And like any other job, when a writer can't write, a writer feel like they've failed the universe. It's an ugly feeling. Thankfully, when inspiration does come back, it comes back with the force of a sledgehammer to the solar plexus. But still, the fact that the feeling will jump you despite best intentions is disheartening. The best and pretty much only method to deal with it is to keep writing things out and hoping good something comes eventually. It's as fun as it sounds.

ENDING STUFF

I've once been told that writing is a lot like flying a plane-the only really dangerous parts are taking off and landing. I've never had a problem getting any sort of written project off the ground, but I guess it's traded off in the fact that ending it is an ordeal. Like this post for instance. I have no idea how I'm going to tie up all the loose ends. I mean, should I go all classic and make some statement like "but in the face of all this, a real writer does not care and blah blah bloop de blah", or should I end with a funny anecdote? Summarize the events in a clever matter? Rick Roll all of you?

Ending any piece of writing is like trying to carry a tray of drinks to the table. Any old jerk can carry and empty tray to the kitchen and put a huge pile of drinks on it. It takes a real hero to be able to carry that all the way back to the living room, find the best place to sit it down, and do so without spilling everything all over the place. But when you do it, you feel like a million bucks. Maybe that's why I have a weak spot for stories that have good endings. They don't need to be happy or sad, but when an author can tie up everything just right, no matter how crazy and ridiculous the events may be, it doesn't feel like it was all that bad when you manage to walk off feeling like you're taking away something. And when you do manage to put that tray down just right without spilling a drop, you can't help but think, "Yeah. Yeah I'm awesome."

I think a lot of things are like that. It takes a lot of effort to do any sort of big project or long-term goal, or short term ones, for that matter, and you'll have good times, bad times, and you'll wonder if you'll ever be able to pull it off. But when you do manage to finish it, whether it just be your chores for the day or building a house, you can't help but wear that smug smile, nod to yourself, and be amazed at how awesome you are. Getting through anything from start to finish is no small task, but when you full it off, the feeling you have can't quite be compared to anything else.

And I still hate working at Walmart.

_{*Professions exempt from the sucky job clause include lawyers, billionare playboys by day who are superheroes by night, criminal masterminds, and milkmen.}

BBB: Angel Food and Devil Dogs (pt III)

To my good friend Alex, no, I did not mean to imply that my brother was bisexual, nor did I mean to imply that I found Megan Fox attractive. I apologize for worrying you otherwise.

---ooo---

Goddamn Maggie can't keep it in her pants for five minutes. So as the curtain rises on the final act, we see her once again off to the Language Arts building to jump Anthony's bones. Once again we run into Leo Getty, who once again is having a nervous breakdown and talking like a nervous wreck. This guys about to drop a ton of bricks in his pants every time he sees Maggie, and she's not at all suspicious of it? And another thing, remember that he was the one who had the scoop that Carl was thrown out of his old private school? How did he even know that in the first place? Nobody else brought it up. What, was he Carl's confidant? And he seems to have a particularly flimsy alibi to boot. So you think this would be a guy who you'd really want to call for further questioning, right? But the Mag's off the clock, and as we all know, she doesn't do responsibility.

So the two meet up and start making out before they can even say hello. Maggie, being the champion charmer that she is, recites "Wild Nights" by Emily Dickinson. Again Maggie, even if Emily Dickinson was a lesbian, it doesn't take a history major to know she wasn't a prolific sexual dynamo. You might want to work on your pick-up poems.

"Oh Kathryn, I want..." I began passionately, but then came t my senses. I said in a reasonable voice, "I'd love to roll around on the floor with you right at this very moment, driven by desperate desire..."

Yeah babe, you make me feel all desperate. I take back my previous statement-the more Maggie talks, the more Emily Dickinson looks like a smooth operator.

So Maggie and Anthony go out to order Mexican food (because nothing says romantic night on the town like bean burritos), as we encounter the first real shocking twist of the entire book-the restaurant owners are completely straight. Of course, the book doesn't want to step too far out of its comfort zone, so the Spanish-speaking owners oggle at how Maggie managed to get a drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend. Which at this point of the book I find to be a surprisingly reasonable reaction

"Go ahead Kathryn, nothing you can say will chase me away," I reassured her. But that was a lie. After all, I knew very little about her ad there were things that could make a difference.

This is why you shouldn't rush dating so soon after sex, Maggie! Things get awkward if you do it before you're ready!

One would hope that this talk produces some degree of realistic tension or conflict that the two get to work out. But as every good author knows, realistic relationships get in the way of the lesbian sex. Turns out that a year ago, Anthony went to the exact same restaurant on a business trip from California, and while there was lamenting her solo life. Because just as no hetero woman can truly be happy unless she's in a relationship with a man, no femme lesbian can possibly be happy unless she's in a relationship with another chick. Anyway, what are goshdarn odds, it was the exact same day that Maggie came in to celebrate her gay couple friends Farrel and Jesse's anniversary, and of course, Anthony falls instantly in love, and continues to dream of Maggie even when she goes back home, knowing nothing of her personality, preference, or even her name. So meeting Maggie again has been nothing short of a dream come true for her.

Wow. Wow. This just. Wow.

She stopped and started again. "Last night was wonderful, really wonderful, but if sex now and then is all you're looking for, well, I can't...I need...

Sex 24/7! Now hurry up and top me, betch!

Maggie agrees, because showing reluctance or needing to inquire further would be equated to those pesky "character faults" that would get in the way of her godliness, and again, the lesbian sex. So she proceeds to tell how she beat up Druckenmacher like a frat-boy jock trying to show off, and of course Anthony giggles and rubs her muscles and other girl things like that.

Afterwards, Maggie Gale get's a call from the elderly house sitter who tells her that one of the bulbs broke (and manages to squeeze in another comment about Anthony's attractiveness, whoopie), so Maggie Gale volunteers to go take care of it. Oh, hey guys, I know this one! How many lesbians does it take to screw in a light bulb?

...uh, anyway. So they go to Farrel and Jesse's house, Maggie fixes the bulb, and the day is saved! Maggie decides to celebrate her victory in a way any rational human house watching for their friends would. Have sex loudly in their hot tub in the backyard.

Okay, I live in central New York, and I know that in the middle of the night in December, you have to fight to keep yourself from freezing your ass off. Doing so much as letting the dog out for thirty seconds is an ordeal. If I'm out at night in the dead of winter, what runs through my head tends not to be "man I so want to get naked and romp through the snow into a scalding hot tub to pound someone I've only known for two days". To think otherwise is either sexual frustration verging on insanity or the onset of early hypothermia.

But uh oh, in a classic comedic twist, Farrel and Jesse are home from their vacation early! And Maggie and Anthony are in their birthday suits in the backyard right in the middle of getting their jollies on. Finally the book has the decency to admit that there are consequences for just going at it wherever and whenever you please. Yeah, you give them a piece of your mind Farrel! Get out here, and read Maggie the riot act. Oooh, I need a little cathartic release from riding shotgun in Maggie's head. So can't wait for this.

Farrel turned and noticed our piles of clothing on the chairs. She walked over to them, then turned to look out the French doors at the tub. "I think we just caught two lovely young mermaids in our courtyard lagoon," said Farrel with amusement.

I

BEG

YOUR

PARDON?!

Are you out of your mind? Lame and completely inappropriate line aside, how can you be amused by that? Amused is coming home to find your dog's sleeping on the couch. Not when you've just come home from a vacation early in the middle of the night, and you've found your best friend you asked to shovel your driveway is making the beast with two backs with some skank she picked loud enough to wake up the neighbors in your hot tub. This isn't a "you crazy kids" situation, this is grounds for arrest! Farrel should at the very least yank them both out of the water by the scruffs of their neck, drag them to the house through a few snowbanks,

and demand an explanation before or after they null their friendship and apply for a restraining order.

But no. Get this. Not only does Farrel and Jesse offer to give them a few more hours alone, they show both Maggie and Anthony prime hospitality and even offer dessert for them, and then Jesse apologizes to Maggie for walking in on them, while Maggie doesn't apologize at all. Huh. I don't think that twitch over my right eye was there before.

So after confirming Anthony's "politics" and "how out" she was, they decide they absolutely adore her, and want to take her out antiquing for a proper dating interview. Again, they seem totally nonchalant about her having sex in their tub less than an hour earlier. I can't believe this never comes up again. Even if I had saintlike patience and could forgive them, I'd at the very least never let it die. And then we're given the second half of our title: apparently, Carl liked Angel Food as much as he liked Devil Dogs, so Farrel and Jesse serve it to the two little horndogs as a special treat. Man, of all the elements of this story to pick, Bradbury picked the one least plot relevant that sounded the trashiest to make her title. More evidence that this book is purposefully satirical. God I hope.

So after all of this, it's back to Maggie's place, where Maggie proceeds to show off how butch and awesome she is. I love how in an earlier passage, she complained that she hated exercising and only did it because she has to, and yet she can bench press 150. Yeah, that's totally reasonable. Anthony does more giggling and squeeing, as Maggie continues to do maneuvers akin to Olympic gymnastics, which in case you're wondering, take years to perfect and not just one hour of jumping on the treadmill every day. But we've already established that this book is not on speaking terms with reality.

"Kathryn, if we wrestle physically, I will always win...unless I want you to, and I'm sure I will sometimes."

I can think of at least ten ways to phrase that to not sound like a total dick.

We talked about everything. Our families, our lives, our work. How we felt about pets, where we chose to live, whether either of us wanted kids. We covered politics, religion, marriage, and a dozen other subjects. No conflicts, no attitudes that were diametrically opposed.

So the two managed to accomplish what most couples can take years to sort out in one night. How do you even pull that off? A check list? I could go on about how near impossible it is for them to agree on absolutely everything coming from such phenomenally different backgrounds and careers, but I'm more amused by the fact that since there is no difference in the two at all, there's no chance that they'd need to view opinions that are different from their own and develop into better, more open human beings. Joy.

However, Anthony manages to have one obligatory character flaw-insomnia! That's...really not a character flaw, but sure! And then the two do bad things with a paintbrush. However, the phone rings, and in her first real moment of redeemable character, Maggie turns her back on sex for thirty whole seconds (!) to answer it. And good thing she did, because, dun dun dun, Rowlina, our favorite offensive German stereotype, has been shot! Not fatally, but enough to ruin her giant coat made of murdered animals and the countries she ran her tanks over.

She was shot at in the Language Arts building, the same building that Anthony worked at. Apparently, it was late at night, and she had a deep and personal problem that she wanted to talk to someone about. So she happened to see the light in the office Anthony left on (probably too distracted swapping saliva with the Mag to turn it off earlier), and decided it would be a good idea to talk to her. Apparently, she was having troubles with government officials in regards to her marriage to the man on the west coast. Government officials were jumping her, because they suspect she married him to get him citizenship. Rowlina shows a rare moment of being wounded and genuinely frightened, so of course, Maggie seizes the opportunity to squash what little likabili...redeema...what little ounce of character you could almost sort of tolerate.

Probably, over the years, many lesbian coeds had gazed with desire at Kathryn's late night office lights. Had Rowlina hoped for a midnight tryst with Kathryn? I'll admit to a certain smugness in knowing that Kathryn was resting her beautiful head in my lap, while Rowlina prowled the night looking for her.

Okay, so let me get this straight. Here's a woman who's been shot in the middle of the night, being dogged by government officials, has no idea what's going on or what exactly happened, and the least childish and presumptuous thing Maggie can inner monologue about is shoving her thumbs in her ear and waving her hands going "nya nya, I got the girl and you didn't?" Rowlina even asks if Anthony is okay, and all Maggie can think of is making out with her. So Maggie is the bigger jerk than the over-the-top German stereotype. That's really not something to brag about.

So Maggie goes home, and acts like a creeper by drawing Anthony while she's asleep. From different angles. Anthony seems to think that the safety of her colleague can wait until after a couple more hot rounds of sex. Then after talking about it for like five minutes, they get to talk about stupid things like dreams. Maggie says that her dreams can be prophetic, and upon reading that, I groan in dread knowing there's no way that's not going to come up later on.

So Maggie and Anthony drift off to sleep, and when Anthony wakes up to go to the flea market, Maggie sleepily whispers to her an "I love you", then a few minutes later wakes up in shock, wondering what the hell she's just done. Now, to a normal couple, the first "I love you" is a big, fat, hairy deal. I mean, we're talking about talking two hours before and after about it minimum. So of course, Maggie will not discuss it with Anthony, nor will it ever come up in the storyline again.

And now we get to Carl's memorial service, which is second only to the books ending in the most ham fisted "being gay is awesome and homophobia is naughty and bad" message in the whole book. Okay, there's a bit before where Jimmy Harmon acts really suspicious and Maggie nearly gets run down by a piano, which I'd normally get behind, but man. This service. Is just a riot.

Carl's song, I Can See, had both the lines I am a blind man and I am a gay man, in it. I was glad Carl's true self was being celebrated on this day that had been set-aside just for him.

And before you ask, yeah, that funky comma after "gay man" and "set-aside" really were in there. It wasn't just my abysmal typos again. And yes, Carl's true self is nothing but his sexuality and his disability. Nothing about his musical talent or his friendly nature, nor was it the fact that he actually went back and completed his education in the face of adversity, or started up a symphony to help the next generation, or anything of the sort. But his gayness and blindness, that's what you should really be proud of. Because nobody else in the world is gay and blind.

I wondered if this 100-year-old Chapel had ever had dozens of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgeder people singing a gay hymn in honor of a gay man, with such fervor.

Wow, that would be a powerful line if it wasn't hypocritical up the ass. Oh yes, here we are celebrating the LGBT framework, but how many real characters have we seen in the story that are actually GBT? I haven't seen bisexuals or transgendered people at all, and the only really prominent gay man in the story is dead. And even though we're harping on how stinking gay he is, we've never seen him in a relationship over the course of the story. We don't see any male gay couples, but we somehow have room for two lesbian couples and two lesbian lawyers.

There have always been gay people in the world, it's just that now, we no longer buy into pretending we're the same as the majority, just so the majority won't feel uncomfortable.

Yeah, because we're gay, and we're different. We're above your mortal laws! We have our culture and our land, and you can just keep yours. We don't need to live in your reality anymore! We're not just out, we're out of this world! Oh yeah, and the straight community doesn't affect you at all, miss masculine-butch-lesbian dating miss feminine-lipstick-lesbian. I mean, there's writing for a target audience, and then there's supremacy literature.

And of course, the cherry on top is that as the crowd exits the church, a cloud passes by, and out of nowhere, a giant rainbow stretches across the sky, casting it's divine blessing on this great gay-but-not-dating-a-guy-because-that's-icky man. And this is about the time you start feeling the kink in your neck again.

Somewhere along the lines, Maggie gets to talk to Farrel about the antiquing trip, and Farrel, of course, heartily approves. So she tries to paint Anthony as actually having some semblance of a consistent personality, of course adding that Anthony is both hot and hot for her. Thank goodness she does, because then we get a line that's the closest this book gets to being self-aware.

"What did she say that made you think...I mean that's she's...you know, hot?" I reddened a little.

Farrel snickered, "You don't need me to explain that."

It's at the end of the ceremony that two significant clues pretty much walk up to Maggie, drop their pants, and wave their butts in her face. The first was that Connie ran up to Maggie saying that she remembered Shel Druckenmacher harassing another woman at the party that Daria Webster was murdered, at about the same time as Leo Getty's family was screaming at him that he's a complete asshole. So if you in the audience have any semblance of neuron function, you can probably figure out who killed who at this point, but Maggie doesn't, so let's go off to do more gay things.

Maggie goes back to give her report to the president, who after having one person murdered and another one shot at is reasonably at the end of his wits. He presses Maggie for any sort of theory or idea she has, and of course, Maggie has nothing. Are you really a detective Maggie, or just a professional sexer of grad professors? The inquest is coming soon, and Max begs Maggie to think of something.

"Max, it's all coming together, but I can't promise I'll figure it out by Tuesday. It's less than two days away!"

"I know, I know, but...try, OK?" Max rumbled sincerely.

'Try, OK?' Really? Really? You're paying this sleeze out of your pocket under the table by the day and she's spending all her free time boinking one of your professors. 'Try, OK?' is not the correct term. 'Listen up assclown. You're not getting another dime until you get your face out of Dr. Anthony for five minutes and give me something about this case. This isn't a vacation Gale! If you want to get laid, do it on your own time. But I'm paying you through the nose to help me, and if you won't, you're ass is on the curb. You understand?' is much better.

So Maggie heads off to the after party at Farrel and Jesse's place where only the gayest of the gay are allowed to go. When she gets there, Anthony is working in the kitchen and wearing an apron, and in the most blatantly stupid-high-school maneuvers, walks right over to Maggie in front of the crowd and jams her tongue down her throat. The crowd, of course, rejoices at this perfect couple, instead of rolling their eyes at a couple of women in their late thirties acting like a couple of teenagers.

And here's another thing I need to get on a soapbox about. How sexist would Anthony's character be if Maggie was a guy? Think about it, she was introduced as nothing but a future love interest, she falls in love at first sight with Maggie, and still holds onto it after one bloody year when she knows absolutely nothing else about her. Everything about her, is based either on her looks, her sexuality, or her relationship with Maggie. She has a family and a job, but that's thrown to the side so she can be Maggie's sex toy, her personality changes depending on what would be best to get the two in a relationship, and Rowlina was the only person to give her any sort of respect of acknowledgement outside of being in a relationship with Maggie. Seriously, everyone else is commenting either on how hot she is or "hey heard you got a girlfriend".

Also, everything about her over the course of the book is sexualized. Maggie never notes her intelligence or personality or talents or aspirations, but she can't shut up about her auburn hair or her pretty cheek bones or her alabaster skin. Even when Anthony eats pie at the party, she moans in pleasure. And Maggie seems to never go out of the way to intellectually or emotionally stimulate her. Having sex and making out is pretty much the only way they say hello and goodbye. And that's not even counting how they met by means of creepy sexual coercion and glamorizing how what eventually changed Anthony's mind about having sex with Maggie was simply that she got turned on enough. If Maggie was a dude, we'd be screaming sexist before Anthony could get her bra off. But this all feels like a moot point considering we've already established how badly men are treated in this story. So the moral of the story is, everyone in the world is Maggie Gale's bitch. Makes total sense.

So the party is predictably boring, and Maggie and Anthony go back to Maggie's place. Anthony shows off the awesome gay paraphernalia that she picked up from the flea market. Because I find homoerotic stuff every time I go antique shopping with my grandmother. Then Anthony gets into her tragic past which (what a surprise) has to deal with her love life. Apparently, Anthony's partner of five years didn't care whether or not they were committed to each other, which enrages Maggie. I could call hypocrisy with all of the mindless sexual flings Maggie brags about, but as we all know, Maggie is a champion virgin.

So Anthony says the ultimate flaw to her doomed relationship was that it had no "passion", whatever ill-defined thing that is. I think she means sex, because as we all know, sex is the linchpin of any loving relationship. Anthony then asks about Maggie's sexual history, and like any noble girlfriend would do, Maggie completely blows her off. Nice. Anthony figures she needs to go, because in another rare moment of intelligence, she asserts that Maggie will never actually, you know, do the job she's getting paid for if she's getting it on all night long. Being the positive female role model she is, she promises to reward Maggie with "erotic adventures" once she solves the case, and proceeds to suggestively make out with a seashell.

This finally clues Maggie in that the murderer of Daria Webster was not Mickey, but Shel Druckenmacher. What are the goshdarn odds. So Maggie comes in with the lawyers, and states that Shel killed Daria, then cleaned up the crime scene's evidence with a gardening hose, and when Mickey came in to see what was going on, Mickey got sprayed with it, panicked, and fled, and the shock wiped his memories of the event. How the fact that a hose being dragged into the house managed to escape a crime scene investigation aside, what motive did Shel have to kill Daria? Well...come on, he's Shel! He's a total asshole, so why not? Okay, so what's weaker here, the petty romance or the mystery of this story? Pretty damn tough call.

So since Maggie is a special girl who managed to figure it out, her reward is shower sex. Because that's our Maggie Gale, the sexosexual.

Druckenmacher had used a stream of water to scare Mickey and wash away evidence after a horrible murder. We'd used a stream of water to make love. Everything can seem so sordid if you let it. Or, you can celebrate the simplicity of joy by firmly separating it from cruelty. After all, what's more life-affirming than the intimate sharing of sexual love?

Glad you asked Maggie! Talking to your girlfriend about the whole "I love you" thing, first off. And you know, doing your job and saving lives like you'd vow you'd do. Actually learning about new people and cultures outside of your tiny little lesbian circle, the rest of the LGBT to start. Doing actual hobbies other than sexing up your girlfriend would also be nice. Doing fun things with Anthony other than wine, dinner, and sex would also be pretty life-affirming, I would think. Giving back to the community and being a proper humanitarian like you claim you are and how Carl was? Hey, you could even do things together with Anthony! Cooking your own meals. Reading a good book that makes you think. Write a caustic blog. Stuff's out there!

Since Maggie has the common sense of a sack of driveway gravel, it takes one of those "prophetic dreams" to figure out what Carl's Macaroni Can is and thus solve the mystery. It is as unbearably stupid as it sounds, and I would try to describe it, but I can't think of a good children's program written by a famous person who's criminally insane. So the next day, Maggie gathers up all the suspects in classic mystery style to bring out the BIG REVEAL. But first, more Bart abuse! Remember Carl's memorial service? Maggie happened to pass by Bart, one of the staff members that attended. And, I kid you not, she actually wanted to punch him in the face because he nodded hello to her. And that's downright charming compared to this.

He said, "I'm, ah, not really here," and then giggled. I took that to mean that he was still officially out on leave. He held his bandaged hand in the air in the most conspicuous way possible. In fact, he kept bumping his head into it, as though he had no idea it was there. Maybe now would be a good time to grab him around the neck and squeeze until he told me what happened right after the bomb went off. I decided to do that after the meeting, unless I had a better idea.

You're a doll Maggie. You really are.

And here's what irritates the English Major in me. This book is written in the first person, and I assure you that being at ground zero of Maggie's brain is a delight in itself. but there's a moment when Anthony sends an e-mail to the group saying that she think's Maggie Gale can't solve mysteries for crap (again, another rare moment of the book's self-awareness). So Maggie actually narrates that she's furious and angry and she can't believe Anthony would do such a thing. Like, seriously, she tells the audience she was angry. And the instant the true murderer is revealed, she says "oh yeah, I was totally faking it and didn't feel that way at all."

No.

Just. No.

That is not how the first person perspective works. The whole point of the first person narration is to, yes, narrate the story from a character's perspective, but the character is not, I repeat, is not aware that there's an audience that's being spoken to. So a character can't deceive the audience because the character doesn't know that there is an audience to deceive. You can't do that. It breaks the narration and betrays the trust we put into the character's story, not that it's easy to trust this clump of entrails of a human being to begin with. And frankly even if you could deceive the audience it really doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the whole thing was an act for it's massive betrayal of your already SHALLOW, STUPID, HEDONISTIC, POISONOUS, RECKLESS, BULLYING, IRRESPONSIBLE, HYPOCRITICAL, HOLIER-THAN-THOU, CRUEL, SEX-CENTERED, SELF-CENTERED, THUGGISH, OBTUSE, UNFUNNY, UNAPPEALING, UNATTRACTIVE, BLAND AND MOISTENED CARDBOARD PERSONALITY.

So it really isn't something you should be doing. It's a very easy mistake for first time authors, but it still looks very unprofessional.

So it turns out that Carl's Macaroni Can was Carl's Micro Scan, and it was set so that the note would come up automatically on a voice command, and that it came from an outside source and thus, not from Carl itself. So it was proven to be murder, and Jimmy Harmon has a breakdown. Maggie thinks she had the killer, and shakes him down for the story. Jimmy tells her she has the wrong man, saying that he's actually relieved, because he thought he killed Carl by saying his work was no good and driving him to suicide. Apparently, Jimmy handed some of his songs to a publishing company to look over his work, and of course they thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Jimmy got jealous, told Carl he sucked, and he thought it was enough to make him knock himself off.

So that means the only person left on the roster is, uh oh, generic straight man number two, Leo Getty! So...basically he tries to kill Anthony, but Maggie bitch slaps him and Anthony decks him with one of lesbian statues (it's symbolic!), and the day is saved. So what why did Leo want to kill her, or Carl for that matter?

Easy! He hated gay people!

Yep!

He hates him some gays!

Gays are bad!

Total homophobe!

Yeah...

Well, okay, his son was the dude Carl made out with, which got him thrown out of school. And he also wanted to kill Anthony because he was one of the professors she tattled on for falsifying research (so the college does no background checks at all I guess) and Carl knew about the fraud. But Carl, being the saint he was, wanted to help Leo and give him a clean slate, and even suggested patching up things between him, Leo, and Leo's son. But homophobia is tragically incurable, and helping one sick with it is a fatal mistake. Leo shot at Rowlina because he mistook her fox-fur hat for Anthony's red hair (somehow), and he killed Skylar because Skylar teased him about smelling like a bottle bomb.

So at the end of the day, Maggie and Anthony go home, and in the first genuinely heartwarming moment of the entire book, Maggie tucks an exhausted Anthony into bed without making out with her. Aaaaw. And we get one last, beautiful, self-aware line:

I tucked her in and kissed her forehead. She was already asleep. The whole thing would have been pretty adorable, if the preceding event hadn't been so terrifying.

Yes Maggie, this entire scene would be very endearing if the rest of the book didn't happen before it.

And now...the epilogue.

Connie Robinson got a raise.

Yay!

Miranda Juarez was rid of Shel.

Yay!

Nancy dumped Bart Edgar, who continued to work for the college.

Ya-buhwah? What was that for? So they were dating and Nancy did break up with him? How...but...why? How? What? So basically nothing's gotten better for this poor man? The book wanted to flip him off for one last time? Yeah rob the last bit of happiness from a man with an undiagnosed mental disorder. Real progressive, book!

To the books credit, Georgia was eventually released from the hospital and renewed her vows with her husband, and the book cryptically comments "which everyone hoped would last". Rowlina dumps her husband, and Maggie cackles that she's still "in the closet". In her style, Rowlina flips her off with a cigarette in her mouth, toting her fur coat and fox hat and walking off into the sunset. God be with you Rowlina. God be with you.

Even from the great beyond, Carl's awesomeness shines down on the college, as the Rainbow Youth Symphony (ran by Leo Getty's gay son), flourishes, and people like JLo and Elton John want to sing them (Elton John, what are the goshdarn odds), and the royalties pour in! And funds and scholarships are booming all thanks to Carl's magnificent death.

But just in case you didn't get that homophobia is naughty and bad, Leo Getty not only can't find a lawyer to defend on trial, but he has two minor heart attacks before, and one major one that kills him before he can appear in court. So not only is Anthony the murderer, she has a Death Note.

I think what actually killed Leo, was the realization that he couldn't find a lawyer who agreed that his revenge against gays was justified.

Yeah, because there are absolutely no lawyers in the entire country these days who are willing to take up the case of anyone who committed a hate crime, especially anyone who would dare lay a finger on the gays.

And so for Christmas, everyone has a sex gay party and exchange really gay gifts. Sara makes one last appearance, to make one last creepy attempt at a threesome. Farrel and Jesse give the two a UHAUL gift card (DUR HUR) and the girls give each other erotic Japanese paintings and sissy girl pins. Max has once again forgiven Maggie for completely assholing around, and has not only given her a tremendous bonus for her hard work, but gave her a piano that she put in her apartment for Anthony to play. Because every good female love interest needs to sing and play a romantic musical instrument.

Then comes the beautiful conclusion, where Maggie tells Anthony to give up her life, career, and home, and move in with her after going for a vacation down in Florida. Kathryn answers with one last out-of-context Emily Dickinson poem, and AT LONG LAST the story ends.

It's easy to get depressed when reading this story. It's a hard fact to swallow that anyone would bother to write this book, let alone be spiteful enough to try to get it published. It's elitist, reactionary, and overly-idealized to the point of being insulting. But I take nothing short of a prolific egalitarian method. Just as the straight community, the gay community has awful, awful literature. Surely ever minority group does to. So if we could all just bring the worst of our worst, swap it around, and have a good, hearty laugh, then truly we are one step closer to being an accepting and tolerant society. And this is yet another reason why Angel Food and Devil Dogs deserves to be known to the world.