Rail Romanesque

Are you old enough to remember what steam engine trains look like? Sad to say, they are going out of fashion today’s modern era although not totally extinct yet. So in a dying industry, what can they do to help keep themselves afloat? Well, according to Rail Romanesque, we have such trains personified as cute humanoid girls who have gathered to pitch in their knowledge and wisdom on how to sell unique train merchandise!!! WTF?! You heard that right. Train girls trying to sell train related products. So take out your wallets and get ready to throw away the dough for those merchs! Hey, they thought real hard about it, you know!

Episode 1
As explained, Raillords are humanoid dolls who operate control modules for railroad trains. With the age of railways on the decline, I guess they need to do something about it. Hence Suzushiro hosts the first Raillords Summit. But those who attend are only Kakaa, Shirogane, Ran, Kiko, Beni, Riiko, Iyo and Suika. Though, they are perplexed that they got the invitation from Hachiroku and Reina but them themselves didn’t turn up. Suzushiro then shows a short video apology that they have to participate in some meeting with humans. So for now, our Raillords will be discussing revolutionary ideas that will usher a new era for them. And that is… Producing merchandise!

Episode 2
Shouldn’t they discuss about how to get more passengers? Oh whatever. Selling goods sounds interesting to them too. They’re on board this merch thingy. Suzushiro starts off with a flow chart on what to do and the next step is to form groups in which they’ll do brainstorming in a breakout session. Since they will take turns, for those groups who aren’t up yet, Suzushiro suggests going sightseeing around Ohitoyo City. The first summit is successful as they celebrate. By eating coal!!! Oh well… Suzushiro is happy the groups are getting well along with each other.

Episode 3
So the first session is in place with Riiko and Iyo. Unfortunately they have no ideas! Better come up with something or they can’t leave. Riiko has an idea about a temple near some railway line that is famous for its tanuki charms. However she points out the real charm is some beetle! Eww! Bugs! As she explains how it can climb up glass windows without slipping, this has Suzushiro relate to how sand pipes are used as breaks to stop steam engine wheels from slipping. Hence, an anti-slipping charm string! Oh yeah. This is going to sell. Meanwhile we see Kakaa and Suika visiting the shrine as the former explains the different types of torii. Suika has sketched a picture of Kakaa praying there. Kakaa is impressed and if she wants it, she can draw a more refined one. Please do.

Episode 4
Iyo’s suggestion is sweat towels? When a dragonfly lands nearby, it may look new to others but for bug loving Riiko, it is pretty much a daily affair. This gives them the idea of selling photos of engineers using those towels. While it might look ordinary to engineers, it is something new for customers. With their session done, they are free so Riiko takes Iyo to some bug spot. Spinning things attract some butterflies? A special dragonfly lands on Iyo’s bell so Riiko believes because of her, they are able to meet.

Episode 5
It’s the next session with Kiko and Beni. Beni is adamant to come up with a better product so as to prove to Reina to admit that she is good. But Kiko comes up with her idea of heat proof mittens with a steam locomotive seal. Enough to even withstand burning coal! Who the f*ck wants to hold burning coal???!!! Meanwhile we see Riiko and Iyo sightseeing but as expected, Riiko prefers hunting bugs. And Riiko loves having Iyo around since bugs are somewhat attracted to the latter.

Episode 6
Beni comes up with an idea using Satsuma Kiriko cut glass. However she can’t add any railroad theme to it. So they brainstorm glass parts on certain locomotives until it occurs to them the wonderful idea of using that cut glass as a gauge water bottle. Meanwhile, Ran and Shirogane are at the Ohitoyo Railroad shop to check out the various train themed goods on display as well as to get some ideas of their own.

Episode 7
Ran and Shirogane tell all the places they visited to Suzushiro. Since it’s their turn to brainstorm, Ran has problems coming up with a new railway bento. Seeking Shirogane’s advice, she talks about water supply heater and this gives Ran an amazing idea as she designs a bento using water bottle as the water supply heater. So great an idea that Ran wants to repay Shirogane in some romantic way? She’s making Shirogane feeling weird… Meanwhile Kiko and Beni are at a blacksmith shop. Beni learns and forges her own knife. This will be useful when she makes her own merchandise.

Episode 8
As Shirogane prepares to tell her idea, she thinks she has misplaced it. It is some cylinder part made of chocolate as a testament of some precision manufacturing. With the rest noticing other parts and how assembly is required, this gives Shirogane an idea to come up with self-assembled chocolates! Assemble the chocolates? Damn, I’ll just eat it all! Disassembled in my mouth, haha! Meanwhile we see Kakaa showing Suika around Ohitoyo. Suika drawing comparisons of the city compared to hers back in China. She hopes to invite Kakaa tour her hometown when the time comes. When they retire? How long will that be?!

Episode 9
Kakaa talks about people who buy tickets for some boat steering experience can keep the ticket as souvenir. Then she shows an expensive silk wallet. I don’t think this can be produced cheaply. This has Suika want a ticket holder but because a ticket is so long, it can’t really fit. So just make it longer! Which means they can use the silk material to make a better higher quality ticket holder and selling it at higher price! Oh yeah! Gotta love capitalism! Meanwhile Ran and Shirogane are visiting an old coal mine. Not sure about how this black piece of lump is the future. Trains are all electric powered now, right? I don’t know, cue for some weird Ran-Shirogane yuri romance, I guess.

Episode 10
Suika has her traditional fan. Its shape looks like a train garage but she is sad that this doesn’t sell well back in China. You see, ordinary people don’t know how such garages look like because those are considered as military facilities. But don’t get disheartened. Suika notes the people love the trains themselves and as she pinpoints certain train series, it gives her the idea of making a list of those series and put it on the fan. So are you a fan of fans? Meanwhile we see Kiko and Beni tugging in for the night. Kiko has he own canopy bed. Beni loves how comfy it is but when Kiko hints some yuri sh*t, whoops, Beni is out of here! But eventually this won’t happen because Beni forgot the pillows.

Episode 11
With the sessions over, Suzushiro presents a short message from Hachiroku. She congratulates everyone for their hard work. That’s it. Disappointed? Suzushiro has taken the liberty to give them various souvenirs of Ohitoyo. The main one is a box where they can paint whatever they want on it and put all their mementos in it. So they get creative and leave the paint to dry. In the meantime, it’s time to soak in the hot bath! Oh yeah. Nearly forgot they got this fanservice capability! I guess this the best mementos for us!

Episode 12
The summit might be over but Suzushiro has everyone join in and take part in the Ohitoyo Maitetsu Festival. Once that is done, Suzushiro hands them their painted boxes and they’re free to go. Once everyone has left, Suzushiro feels lonely as she thinks it will be another decade before everyone can meet again. But what’s this? They return. Looks like all of them decide to give her a token they made as a special commemoration of this encounter. In short, they’ll always be together forever. And so it’s not over yet since they want Suzushiro to become their tour guide of the place. Gladly.

To Aru Kaka Gakkari No Raillords…
Oh my… How can this get another season?! I mean, REALLY???!!! Yup, when I say things like that, it means it is bad. Very bad. So I guess this also means that we viewers can’t leave poor Suzushiro alone and come back and watch this series for nostalgic purposes. Heh. If we ever want to do that! Okay, okay. Don’t want to make these Raillords cry and make unnecessary enemies out of lolicons everywhere. Fine. I’ll give them another chance when the next season arrives. Sheesh.

I read online the many comments claiming why this series is such a disappointment was that they thought it was going to be an adaptation of the game, Maitetsu. Surprisingly it is not. As far as I understand, this series takes place in the aftermath of the game, hence many were disappointed that their favourite elements and characters from the game were not featured. Like as though it is all an afterthought. Hey, I never played the game, let alone heard of it till this series popped up, and I am sure as hell as disappointed as those who are casual or hardcore fans! I’m not sure if the prior announcement tricked and trolled people about being Maitetsu’s adaptation or if it is just people’s assumption that they thought it would be its adaptation when it was not obviously mentioned in the first place.

Either way, this series came out bad and boring. The only thing I am grateful for is that since it is not exactly and directly related to Maitetsu, we can still cut this abomination off and not directly effect and bring a bad name to that name. Hopefully, the next season will see a total revamp or a change. Otherwise, the train wreck will continue. Just switching from a rail that leads to a deep ravine to another rail that leads to a bottomless abyss. With crocodiles lurking in below… Yeah…

But as far as this anime is concerned, I don’t how the producers get the idea of having Raillords coming up of merchandises to be sold to be anything near exciting. Sure, if this was in some planning stage that happens during some meeting behind closed doors, fine. Whatever. But to showcase us a bunch of steam engine trains personified as cute girls pitching in their ideas for a big majority of the series? What were they thinking?! My guts tell me that the selling point is the cute girls and not the whatever ideas they come up with. Not sure if those ideas already existed or if whoever in the production team came up with them have any ideas to sell them to railroad companies, but it seems pretty much wasted showcasing them here.

I mean, in 3 minutes of running time, I can’t believe the Raillords can come up with something so perfect as a merchandise! I scratched my head for months to come up with something and eventually gave up! Wasted time. Wasted brain power and effort. And yeah, it sounds like BS when they could just come up with it perfectly in the sense that it already sounded like a finished product! Maybe they skipped the boring fine details of tidying up the finer details but they sure made it look like they have that moment of brilliance in an instant. Oh damn. And here I am wondering why the train business isn’t doing so well in Japan, at least where this fictitious city of Ohitoyo is. Is it me or do I noticed that the city is void of people?! Except for the last episode where everyone just suddenly pops up for the festival, I noticed that during the sessions while other Raillords go visit places, there is not a soul around. Oh damn, you bet this place needs more than Raillords merchandises to keep it going. It needs tourism!!!

As for the characters, they’re pretty much disappointing and weak. I mean, how far can you go with just 3 minutes? Even if the mid-intermission has laid out a lot of details about a particular Raillord, it means nothing if you don’t really care or want to relate to any of them. Unless you’re a big fan of a certain Raillord but that’s another matter. Yeah. Great bio-data. So what, right? And having a pair of them to flaunt their brilliance and cute stuffs in just 3 minutes, like I said, this must have been the selling point of this series. So much so at the end of the day, I still cannot remember any of the Raillords by name. Pop up a picture of them and my mind will go blank trying to recall their name. Heck, I don’t think I remember some of their names at all!

The only one I remember is Suzushiro since she appears in every episode as the host of the sessions. Even so, she fails to captivate and the way she acts as a host, it’s like as though she is just canvasing for ideas. I don’t mean to see her in a negative light but the way she accepts the Raillords’ ideas sometimes feels like as though she is desperate. Aha! Great idea! That will do! After all, I have got to assume that times are bad so any idea is a good idea. Never try, never know. Also, Suzushiro is trying to be a nice host and motivate the Raillords for those ideas so yeah. Next time your toddler kid achieves something like putting the dishes in the sink, oh damn, it’s a helluva big deal! Time to celebrate this achievement! Uh huh. Now I understand and get the feel of what Suzushiro’s role is.

So the sessions of coming up with ideas takes a very short while and in fact is just half of the entire series. That’s like 1.5 minutes of the episode itself. Wow. They really rush through the brainstorming session, huh? What I want to say is that once they get this part out of the way, the second part sees the other pairs who are not involved in the session, going around doing their sightseeing thingy and in a way, bond closer to each other. I don’t know, it sometimes feel like they are running close to the yuri line. Damn, if Raillords get hot and steamy with each other, I bet many would throw their money for this service! Oh sh*t! Shady and sleazy but it brings in the cash! Anyway, what I’m also trying to say here for this part is that they try to showcase the bond between those 2 Raillords but eventually with the screen time so short, it hardly brings about anything. I only remember Riiko and her bugs because she’s a retard who likes insects. Hey. Not bad. I just remembered 1 Raillord! Hooray! Achievement!

Speaking of that Ohitoyo City, I tried to Google about it but it seems I can’t find any results about it and hence confirmed my suspicions that it is only a fictitious city (since results of Maitetsu keeps popping up, duh). The way they showcase some of its places of interests feels like they are promoting a real city, which could’ve been great had Ohitoyo City been a real one. Not sure what city in Japan they modelled after but I suppose as a foreigner who thinks he has known a lot of Japanese things after watching ‘a lot’ of animes, I believe every city or town in Japan is well, just like that. Oh yeah. Japan is Japan. How else could it be more different than that?

Art and animation are rather okay. The cute Raillords are one thing but I also have to give it to them for putting in the quality in the sceneries. So if the merchandises of the Raillords won’t get your attention, perhaps the picturesque sceneries will. As for the Raillords design, I guess they’re pretty cute (Raillolis could’ve been…) and standard with a few variations here and there. After all, they have to look like they are train conductors that sometimes look like military outfits. I bet I want to see their futuristic counterparts like the modern electric trains like Shinkansen in a more daring, sexy and futuristic outfits against but that is just wishful thinking of mine. This anime is animated by Saetta who did Jingai-san No Yome.

Overall, this short series is pretty forgettable and hopefully the next season will bring some sort of redemption. Trying to make cute characters come up with sellable merchandises seem so out of place and boring. After all, they might think it is a great idea but will the consumer eventually buy it? They may think otherwise, though. Somebody in the marketing and promotion not doing their job, that’s why these poor cuties have to step in and do something about the money, which isn’t really their job in the first place. They should’ve just been there at their trains, flashing their sweet cutie smiles to us instead of coming up with things that probably no one wants. Otherwise I would rather throw my money at that Transformers’ Team Bullet Train Autobot trio retro toys. Or one of those Lego train sets. But definitely don’t want Thomas & Friends! This is getting off track…