Fall 2013 Anime: Wanna Be the Strongest in the World

I’m really starting to get tired of anime with really long names. Not because they’re hard to remember but, just because it gets annoying to write about them, since I usually write out the full name about seven times if I write a piece about it. Today I’ll be talking about Sekai de Ichiban Tsuyoku Naritai or, Wanna Be the Strongest in the World or, Sekatsuyo, whatever you wanna decide to call it. I really don’t care too much. It’s a show about women’s pro wrestling from ARMS, the producers of Queen’s Blade and Elfen Lied, Which means that on the surface it’s masturbation material for weirdos but, if you look closer you’ll see that it’s masturbation material for weirdos.

This is what they want you to believe this show is all about.

Analysis: Based on my knowledge of anime and Japanese pop culture, I feel I can safely say that if there are three sports that the Japanese love more than any others, it’s baseball, soccer and, pro wrestling (SHUT UP. IT’S A SPORT). As such, we see anime about these three all the time. Well, more so about soccer and baseball but, wrestling gets its time on occasion with stuff like Tiger Mask, Kinnikuman and, Metal Fighter Miku. Now I’ll be perfectly honest, Sekatsuyo isn’t as much about pro wrestling as it is about having Ayana Taketatsu, the voice actress for the main character, suggestively moan into a microphone.

This is what it’s actually about.

The show starts with pop idols Sakura Hagiwara and Elena Miyazawa, going to a local pro wrestling promotion for some kind of publicity show when Rio Kazama, pro wrestler and general not so nice lady, decides to injure Elena in a sparring match, which prompts Sakura to challenge her to a match, which inevitably leads to Sakura decide that she’s gonna quit her career as a pop idol and dive head first into the world of women’s pro wrestling because why the hell not, right?

Was Sakura just raped or, did she just receive a German suplex? That’s for you to decide…

I mentioned earlier that the production studio behind Queen’s Blade had their hands in this show and it shows greatly. I’ll say this though; out of all the really trashy, exploitative, pseudo-pornographic anime I’ve seen, Sekatsuyo succeeds at being not too bad. Aside from a number of scenes where Sakura will find herself in a submission hold, crying out in ecstacy agony as the screen jumps between zoom ins on her chest and crotch, there’s nothing horribly annoying or tasteless about the show. The characters are your standard sports anime fair. You have Sakura, the newbie with an unlikely amount of potential and determination, Rio, her rival  and, Misaki Toyoda, the current champion that Sakura idolizes because she’s so awesome and graceful in the ring. animation is nothing spectacular but, I’ve definitely seen worse, especially from ARMS. If the show involved more technical description of the inner workings pro wrestling, it could pass as an average sports manga with some slight sexual undertones which is why I find myself enjoying it more than I know I should. That being said, let’s see if we can avoid mentioning this show to the morons at Kotaku or that lady from Feminist Frquency . The last thing I wanna see is an op-ed piece or a youtube video about how this show promotes “rape culture” or some nonsense.

Verdict: Sekatsuyo is the kind of show that makes it hard for you to enjoy it and not feel like a creep. However, I will say that in the grand scope of anime, there are far worse things to be caught watching. Thins will most likely get at least another week out of me until I put it to the side.