Some Quick First Impressions: Kantai Collection, The iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls and Tokyo Ghoul √A

Kantai Collection

Short Synopsis: Our protagonist sucks at playing battleship

This is an anime based on the popular browser game of the same name. I haven’t played it but from what I hear it has ship daughters and some form of strategy. So I went into this blind, not knowing what I would get. That said, I certainly did not expect cosplaying waterskiing girls with gun skirts fighting bikini clad waterskiing alien women. It was so absurd to look at that I was laughing during the action scenes. But well turns out that is only half the show. For the other half it’s cute girls doing cute things time! A type of anime which has always baffled me. I mean, Harems I get. Generic superpower anime I get. This? The fascination of seeing girls being overacting toddlers is something that never resonated with me. So the unfortunate thing is that both halves don’t work for me. The first because it cracks me up whenever I see those girls waterskiing(In off-putting CG to boot) with those stupid battleship armaments. The second because I have no interest in cute antics. This looks to be an anime for the fans of the game and nothing more.

Potential: 0%

The iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls

Short Synopsis: Our protagonist wants to become an idol

The first season of Idolmaster wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great by any means  but it wasn’t really deserving of scorn. It was a watchable show and compared to the exceedingly large amount of idol themed anime you could do a lot worse. The second season looks to more of just that and I can honestly say I didn’t hate it. I am even a little ashamed to say it was rather enjoyable. Obnoxious Engrish J-POP aside(Ugh it’s so peppy…) the episode was fun to watch. Seeing the producers awkward efforts to recruit the girls was quite amusing. And at least attempts to have a story unlike the many “cute girls doing cute things” shows. If you are looking for something light to watch inbetween the stuff this season I can say this will fill the need.

Potential: 30%

Tokyo Ghoul √A

Short Synopsis: Our protagonist eats Soylent Green.

The first season of tokyo ghoul was a mess. Mainly because of someones great idea of adapting a full 66 chapters of manga in a single cour run. This story does have a pace too slow in the manga but with breakneck pacing the story was murdered. So the question is whether they will slow down for this season or keep the fast pace to cover the rest of the manga. Neither it seems. This is going anime original. Oh yes Studio Pierrot, that’s likely to not anger the fandom further. Pure genius, good job! Alright lets put sarcasm to one side. While the end revelation makes no sense when regarding Kaneki’s character, it’s does open potential for some good idea’s. The second half of the manga is where the more shounen tropes come out proving this is a shounen disguised as a seinien and when you have already buggered up the story, going your own way with it may not be a bad idea. However, in many cases when an anime decides to do it’s own thing and be it’s own story it normally ends up with a much more subpar result. There are exceptions, Fullmetal Alchemist and Welcome to the NHK to name a few. But for every success there is a hundred failures. We may get badass Kaneki and some good action but I am guessing the plot of this show is going to go down the drain. A 10% for wishful thinking that this could provide a better ending than the manga did.

OP: I could give props for being different but one minute and thirty seconds of Kaneki awkwardly staring at me is one minute too many.

Potential: 10%