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Dated 30 January 2017: I've got three shows below the Cosprayers Line

Tazuna and Koyori
Dude sure loves gears.

I started using The Cosmopolitan Prayers more than 10 years ago as a metric to measure the lower limits of tolerably bad anime. Long-time readers will recognize the familiar invective, "WORSE THAN COSPRAYERS" which started out somewhat facetiously, but evolved to become a standard I've applied regularly where appropriate, albeit usually for shows I've quit watching. Through the first third or so of the current season, I'm somehow still watching the following three shows which fall below the Cosprayers Line of dubious quality: Masamune-kun no Revenge, Seiren, and Hand Shakers.

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Dated 3 April 2017: Hand Shakers CHECK

Tazuna and Koyori
Front view.

It has been more than seven years since the last Karmaburn.com CHECK, but inspired but the upcoming return of more Cardcaptor Sakura, I hereby present Formerly Mute Doll's battle costume from Hand Shakers. (Again, with apologies to Kero-chan and Paiway.)

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Dated 4 March 2019: W'z is the Hand Shakers sequel I never knew I wanted

Yukiya
Totally normal background.

To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure I want a Hand Shakers sequel, and I'm already nine episodes into it. In any case, nobody else seemed to know ahead of time that W'z was going to be a sequel until after the first episode aired. Even now, it's unclear to me whether GoHands specifically hid this information or were just really bad at promoting the show. I suppose I could have guessed, since W'z shares the extremely garish 3DCG style found in Hand Shakers, although I find it much less visually jarring now than I did in winter of 2017. Whether this is because the franchise's aesthetic has improved or whether I've just developed a tolerance for it, I have no idea. The way the show looks is pretty much the only reason why I'm watching it, incidentally. I certainly don't care for the setting or the plot or the characters.

Haruka
You are way overreacting, Haruka.

In fact, there's not even much of a cohesive plot to speak of through nine episode. There are some unifying themes, and a number of points that the show continues to re-emphasize, but nothing I consider engaging. The characters are about what you ought to expect, if you remember how they were in Hand Shakers, although there are some semi-amusing changes to a few of them that occurred during the timeskip between the two shows. As far as the new characters go, well, Haruka is doing nothing to make herself endearing. The dumb side plot about her unspoken feelings for Potato-kun is crap and does W'z no favors. She's been entirely dead weight. I'm watching W'z so you don't have to, but if you're at all curious about what this, uh, visually arresting show is like, absolutely start by watching Hand Shakers first. It might be WORSE THAN COSPRAYERS but at least it doesn't have Haruka.