Well, it's time to start properly watching Angel Tales, a.ka. My Dead Goldfish Can't Possibly Be This Cute.

And within the first minute or two it's swinging for the fences, trying to mine pathos out of a goldfish's love for their owner...mostly through the use of a cheap old-timey film overlay.

There's something really wonky about the rain in this scene. It's clearly not animated in a normal way. Was After Effects a thing in 2001? Is this just another overlay?

Also, this is the protagonist, Goro. He is your bog-standard blandly kind Potato-kun, and he's basically Alanis Morrisette's "Ironic" made flesh.

It's tricky to convey how bad the animation is. It's not melting before your eyes like the later half of Weiss Kreuz, but it's cheap and cuts corners everywhere (like the...er, "shadow" below). Also, like most early digipaint shows, the colors are harsh, downright garish.

So through heavenly intervention and a magic phone, this unlucky dude has been sent three cute divine girls to fix his li-

WAIT A GODDAMN MINUTE!

Oh god, the little one has a catchphrase, nano.

An unfamiliar ceiling...

lol wtf is this cheap-ass slide-show edit?

Halfway through the episode, this show reveals the dead pet angle, as recounted (to his frustration and my delight) below. (I watched this episode subbed earlier this weekend). https://twitter.com/Utsanomiko/status/1358480467411009543

Btw, the dub for this is already a total amateur affair, despite the presence of a few notable LA-based dub actresses. I looked up the director, who apparently directed the dubs for shows like Rumiko Takahashi Anthology, The Melody of Oblivious and Ikki Tousen.

Oh dear.

Meanwhile, the sub is a total study in contrasts. Half the cast are total no-names; the other half are big-name lady seiyuu who were either already famous (like Rie Tanaka) or just about to become so (like Aya Hirano).

But yes, all the angel-pet girls have a single, ironic flaw. The goldfish girl is afraid of water, the bird girl of heights, the hamster girl of starvation.

Clearly the only solution is for a blandly nice guy to be blandly nice at them while they call him "Master" a lot.

Nothing like bonding with your dead pets over the shitty toy harmonica riff that you would loop...er, play whenever you had a sad.

OK, I gotta go do some errands and I'll be back to riff the rest of this volume because OH LAWD.

OK, I'm back and it's time once more to share the opening, which may in fact be the cheapest-looking anime OP I've ever seen.

It's almost nothing but recycled show clips along with awkward digital pans over promo art, backed by a song with thuddingly literal lyrics and production that could only be described as Babby's First Casio.

Don't believe me? Here's the first verse, as translated by Bandai Entertainment:

Angels with tails
Twelve of them all gathered
Angels dressed as maids
Protect you with their lives.

The rest of it basically can be summed up as "don't be depressed, stupid!"

Curiosity led me to look up what aired alongside this show in the fall of 2001.

OOF. What a cursed season. Yes, there was Cyborg 009, X, Hikaru no Go, & the Kirby anime, but there was also Hellsing, Rave Master, Final Fantasy Unlimited, and Mahoromatic, just to name a few.

GEE, I WONDER WHAT KIND OF ANIMAL THIS GIRL USED TO BE.

Truly a mystery.