Keijo!!!!!!!!: Or, The Little Butt That Could

Keijo!!!!!!!!'s protagonist (Nozomi Kaminashi) attacking with her butt.[1]

             I really liked the first episode of Keijo!!!!!!!! I can say with complete confidence that I have never watched any episode of any series (Japanese or otherwise) before that left me thinking “I cannot wait until next week when that older woman beats up those young girls with her ass!” My unironic enjoyment of this show might come as something of a surprise, though, if you know anything about either Keijo!!!!!!!! or the sort of content I usually post here (specifically the “political” content of much of that content). For those who might not be familiar with one or the other, here’s a quick run-down: 1) The title of the show “Keijo” refers to a supposed sport where female players try to knock one another off a floating platform into the water using only their breasts or buttocks; 2) I once wrote and posted a 14-page essay on Mad Max: Fury Road and feminism, and my most popular post so far has been one on Mr. Robot and the concept of women in refrigerators. Given that Keijo!!!!!!!! so openly objectifies women and is clearly intended to be about 90% fanservice (read: total wank-bait), one’s assumption might reasonably be that this post is going to be a criticism in the strictest sense of the term. However, that isn’t my goal here.

            Although I saw certain voices online speculating that this show would rile the ole so-called “SJWs” up something fierce, as someone with an abiding interest in social politics and in examining social issues in media, I don’t see any good reason to write about Keijo!!!!!!!! like that. To be blunt: Keijo!!!!!!!! is what it is. There’s nothing insidious about it to be called out. It wears its dedication to T&A on its sleeve, and that’s all there is to it. It’s hard to get angry at a show so open about its interests. The far more annoying offenders, in my opinion, are the anime series that pretend to be about something else but then spend a lot of their time slyly trying to cater to horny fans. Knights of Sidonia is a lot more irritating to me in this regard since it’s principally a drama that nonetheless gets completely sidetracked in its second season with “erotic” will-they-won’t-they-ness that ultimately means nothing since anyone familiar with the genre knows that they absolutely will not even as the show continues to go all in on the male lead—a bland stand-in for the ostensible straight, male viewer—literally having sexual tension with every woman he meets so that people can experience erotic drama featuring the “waifu” of their choice. If there was any chance at all of the protag actually having sex, this would bother me less, but the show seems determined to avoid it so that no fans are disappointed that their stand-in isn’t getting busy with their lady of choice. By continually dangling sex in front of viewers with no intention of ever actually engaging with it or its consequences, the show essentially exists to keep viewers in a horny limbo. It’s the most exploitative, cheap carrot-on-a-stick treatment of romantic drama, with such an obvious hook that the fact that it continues to also pretend to be a serious space drama is downright insulting. The poorly-executed subterfuge is annoying and worth discussing since the series claims one thing while doing another.

            Keijo!!!!!!!! by comparison is frank about its intentions. It’s all wank-bait all the time and doesn’t give a crap. There’s no viewer stand-in either, and, ironically, the show passes the Bechdel-Wallace test, with a large female cast that absolutely focus on things other than men. Furthermore, the fanservice in Keijo!!!!!!! is hardly worse than that of other anime series. As much as it may angle to focus extra hard on butts and boobs, the actual imagery—at least in the first episode—isn’t much hornier than what you would find elsewhere. The act of beating opponents into submission with boobs or butts is as unerotic as possible, and the ludicrous breast jiggle is so over-done that it’s more humorous than hot. My impression of the series thus far, despite all the jokes I’ve seen in comments sections where viewers shout about how much “fapping” they’re doing, is that the only sort of person who could find this genuinely arousing is someone turned on by the mere presence of breasts and butts—in which case they probably get as much out of a trip to the dentist or grocery store as they do out of this ostensibly fanservice-focused show.

            I specified the first episode above because I do feel that the second chapter goes to considerably greater lengths to show off the characters’ bodies with carefully-chosen camera angles, but the context for much of these shots is still more ludicrous than erotic. In fact, one of the things that I love about Keijo!!!!!!!! is that it is low-key hilarious. The premise of the “sport” of Keijo is so completely stupid—and impossible given that butts and boobs are not unfeeling bits of the body and couldn’t be slammed together like this in first place—and the execution of the characters’ various butt- or boob-based attacks is so over-the-top that the show is probably one of the funniest things I have seen in a while; however, Keijo!!!!!!!! is less laugh-out-loud funny than it is low-key funny and genuinely engaging. There is nothing tongue-in-cheek about the show, and this approach to its ridiculousness is a big part of its appeal (comedic and otherwise). I could easily imagine a version of this series that was constantly winking at the viewer and acknowledging its attempted sexiness and wacky premise—and I could also easily imagine the approach becoming tiresome quickly. Instead, Keijo!!!!!!!! takes itself completely seriously. It still has comedic moments, but it treats the sporting event at its core with complete seriousness. The girls’ ambitions to become the best Keijo players are dramatically treated as well. The “races” they participate in are played straight and are animated in a more traditional style: significantly less exaggerated or over-the-top visually than something like Kill la Kill (though the action occurring has more in common with that other series than it does with a true sports or action anime). The result is that Keijo!!!!!!!! is both funny to watch but also genuinely engaging since the drama is real, with no winking required. I would compare it to something like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, another series known for its core of consistent weirdness.[2] One of my favorite blogs is one that posts panels from the JoJo manga without other context in order to show off the ridiculous stuff that becomes even more ridiculous in a vacuum.[3] You can do something similar with Keijo!!!!!!!!.

            Here’s an example from the first episode: One of the characters in the show has a move where she can be standing flat-footed in front of an opponent and then pivot and hit them in the jaw so quickly with her butt that they A) can’t see the attack coming and B) are immediately rendered unconscious. This is physically impossible of course, and it’s also very silly; however, Keijo!!!!!!!! treats this move and the main character’s assessment of it and attempted defense against it with action anime drama. There’s no sword involved, but techniques like this one (or the MC’s “Butt Cannon,” another character’s great butt that makes her opponent think they’re looking at a pair of boobs instead, or a “Butt Guillotine”) are as dramatically presented and animated as anything out of, say, Bleach. The fights are over-hyped and over-dramatized like any other anime. Self-awareness is absent; therefore, the show manages to be funnier and genuinely engaging. The premise also readily lends itself well to the usual action anime escalation of powers. I don’t know what Keijo!!!!!!!!’s version of the old anime “This isn’t even my final form!” is, but I can’t wait to see it.  

Sayaka Miyata using her butt to confuse an opponent.[1]

            With regard to specific episodes, I would say that the first is significantly stronger than the second. I wanted to see at least two before writing some kind of review to see if the quality would drop, and it definitely does. Keijo!!!!!!!!’s first episode is exceptionally well-executed. The first episode of any series always has a lot of ground to cover—The premise has to be established, the foundation of a world built, characters introduced, and some kind of potential or promise demonstrated. A premiere has to juggle more than any later episode because it has to introduce so much and still be satisfying to watch. It needs to be forward-thinking without sacrificing the experience of the Now. Keijo!!!!!!!! is great in every regard because it pulls all this off with aplomb. The sport is introduced before the opening credits along with our main character and her dreams of going pro. These introductions are accompanied by some action—a little taste of the weirdness to come as one Keijo player flies butt-first into another. The setting is also suggested here (some near-future in a world not unlike our own). From there, the protag enters a Keijo academy as we meet more characters before flashing back to an extended action sequence in which we meet more characters and start to see some more of the ridiculous butt and breast attacks. We then return to the present to meet more characters before the episode ends with the promise of a showdown between our core group of girls in training and an older teacher. In roughly twenty minutes, the premiere of Keijo!!!!!!!! includes two action sequences (one much longer than the other), introduces its initial group of major players as well as its premise and world, has time for a more intimate conversation between the MC and her close friend, and then ends with the promise of more crazy action right out of the gate next time. None of this feels rushed either. It’s well-paced and well-animated. Even outside its role as the point of origin for a whole series, “Setouchi Keijo Training School!!!!" is a remarkable bit of television, and I would argue that if you’re on the fence about the series that watching this one episode should give you everything you need to make a decision.

            On the other hand, "The Hip Toss Brings Us Together!!!!" isn’t nearly as well-executed. For one thing, the animation of the single, brief fight sequence isn’t as good. Granted, I do understand why. I’d rather Keijo!!!!!!!! save some money now to pump into bigger, more important action-heavy moments down the road. At the same time, the brevity of what we get here in terms of combat is pretty disappointing. To add insult to injury, the actual practice “race”—the one teased at the end of the first episode—doesn’t occur until near the end of this second chapter. The rest of the episode is a flashback to training that happened before the bout occurs; however, since the episode doesn’t offer any indication of this, I was initially very confused, thinking at one point that I had actually missed something somewhere despite the fact that this was clearly labeled as episode two. Denying viewers the fight until the end with no clear signposting of where the training that dominates the episode fits into the timeline is a bad move narratively. It denies the viewer what they were promised and is also just confusing to watch. The bulk of the episode is about teamwork and bonds the core group of girls and is completely fine. We get to see the girls lift weights with their butts and walk on their butts to train, and it’s all appropriately silly. Episode two is still funny, but its narrative problems throw things off a bit. The capper on the comparative disappointment of the installment comes when the long-awaited “race” at the end just ends. The MC uses a new butt move and her instructor remarks on it as we cut suddenly to the protagonist in a weird, new swimsuit which the other members of the core group briefly comment on before the episode abruptly ends. The timing on the cuts between these last two scenes is awful. There’s no clear sense of transition between them, and then the episode goes to the credits without hinting anything about the function of the new suit or offering anything like a tease to keep viewers watching next week. It’s functional but very bland compared to the first installment, and my continued interest has more to do with the aforementioned promise of crazy escalation down the line set up in episode one than it does with anything that happened this week. Overall, it’s a clear step backward, with more explicit fanservice and less to counterbalance it.

            Despite the disappointment of the second episode, I have high hopes for Keijo!!!!!!!! Again, I say this as someone who doesn’t find the premise or its execution erotic, but I spent a lot of time thinking about the first episode after I watched it. The inherently silly drama of anime treated seriously and coupled with the inherent nonsense of the show’s premise really appeals to me in ways that more overtly comedic series—like One Punch Man, for instance—have not. I’m currently watching the new Berserk anime, which I also like a lot, but the perfect storm of Keijo!!!!!!!!’s first episode occupied my thoughts like the other shows I’ve watched this season have not. I was legitimately, unironically excited to see what happened next, and that’s the biggest endorsement of Keijo!!!!!!!! that I can offer. I encountered the show through the most roundabout method possible, though. I know I’ve seen panels from the “scanlated” manga posted on Twitter before with no sense of what series they belonged to. I also saw someone more recently use a gif of the series’ action in a joke about how much better this butt-fighting series is than Berserk (given the latter show’s overuse of janky-looking CGI). I still didn’t know what it was. Practically the next day, I saw another panel from the manga on someone’s timeline and then immediately Googled “ass fighting manga,” which led me to Keijo!!!!!!!! It feels serendipitous in a way, so I’ll be keeping an eye on this one to see if it reaches the heights that I anticipate for it.  

Notes:

[1] Both images used in this post come from The Reviewer’s Corner’s wonderfully-titled “Keijo!!!!!!!! Ep 1 Review: Nothing BUTT Sports Here.” Their review provides a detailed summary of the plot of the first episode and also includes the thoughts of someone with experience with the Keijo!!!!!!!! manga if you’re curious: https://josefcd904.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/keijo-ep-1-review-nothing-butt-sports-here/

[2] I would also compare Keijo!!!!!!!! to professional wrestling. I think enjoying either requires an unironic investment on the part of the viewer. Wrestling is ludicrous (and fake), but it treats its ludicrousness seriously. Watching professional wrestling without being able to suspend disbelief seems like a recipe for frustration—You would keep watching and waiting for someone to wink, but no one does. Both Keijo!!!!!!!! and pro wrestling know that they’re looney; however, they double-down on it rather than trying to play it off for the cynical, ironic humor one might expect. There’s an earnestness—even purity—to this approach that makes them engaging to watch… because they are engaging; they’re just also low-key batshit insane.

[3] This is the blog in question: http://outofcontextjojo.tumblr.com/