Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru
Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to date the hottest girls in school.
Okay. Here is the thing with this series: its premise is crap. This episode did its best to hide this a bit by at least giving the main couple a bunch of similarities (they hate love) and building this up well, but I see no way whatsoever for this series to work. I can totally see where this is going: they both hate love and gradually across the series they fall in love. That alone should be fine, but then this series comes and stars three more girls, one of which was confirmed to be the dreaded childhood friend. How the hell are they going to contribute to this series beyond being a shallow harem? This is like this fancy-looking boat with a gigantic hole in it: waiting to sink any minute after it heads out. I mean, this is A-1: the production at least was not cheap and the acting was far from as bad as some of the other shows of its genre. It’s just… that terrible premise.
OP: FANSERVICE
Potential: 30%
Cuticle Detective Inaba
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a detective with special dog powers.
Oh my god. I originally was not interested in this show that much, but I did not expect it to be this bad. Here is the thing: the people who adapted this thing seemed to have put no thoughts whatsoever in figuring out how the jokes of the manga this is based on translate over to anime. It’s been a while since I’ve seen such a bad delivery of what could have been some good jokes if the creators took their time to build them up. Right now, this episode just keeps pulling jokes out of its ass without any eye for continuity. This feels like it was written by a bunch of amateurs who don’t know the basics of comedy: they sortof have an idea of what it means to be funny, but have no clear grasp of the details. The result is an episode chockful of random anti-climaxes that feel just put in there for the sake of having tons of anti-climaxes. It tries so hard to put in as many jokes as possible, without making sure to make any of them count. I can tell that the manga that this is based on has a sense of humour: that made me laugh a few times. But holy crap, this is not being translated well here…
ED: Again: trying waaaay too hard.
Potential: 10%
Maoyuu Maou Yuusha
Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to own a demon king with BOOBS.
Cynical synopsis aside: this was the first episode I liked this new season. And it comes from ARMS of all people. For the record: that studio is known for making absolutely horrible fanservice fighting shows over and over. This episode had politics, and very interesting ones at that! I like how this series emphasizes that the war between the humans and demons has become too necessary to make it stop, and it can actually get quite interesting for the main cast to try and solve that. Now if only the main cast was a bit more interesting. It’s basically this sexually frustrated demon queen who just glomps the first guy who she manages to run into, and this typical teenaged male lead hero with very little personality. The only thing that was interesting between them was their dialogue: that was well written. But their actual characters… nah. Their chemistry feels very clunky together. Also, boobs.
OP: Interesting vocalist, pretty good use of music.
ED: An actual good ED that is not about fanservice. Arms, you surprised me.
Potential: 75%
Boobs make a character. Especially well-animated boobs.
That aside, I think this episode confirmed me to that the director’s far more important than the studio in how the final product turns out. Lots of interesting animation here, even if the framerate was a bit…eh on some parts.
Although I really wonder if the Demon Queen really did just randomly decide to glomp the Hero. The hug pillow (I think first time I’ve seen foreshadowing with such a thing…) implies there’s some foreknowledge of who he was…
She actually told him when they meet for the first time that she’s been waiting for him for a long time, so she knew before hand that he’d come.
As for the episode, I thought it was nice. Being animated by ARMS, I wasn’t excpecting this to break the norm when it comes to ARMS and fan service, but I did enjoy the exposition. How the economics and war were tied together were really interesting, and is really true when you think about it, if you were to apply it to reality. It was a nice touch!
I was already fearing about the boob emphasis (this was also in the novels, but not so much) but meh, it’s just a minor issue. The pillow clearly shows that she knew Hero from before, and don’t worry, Demon Queen should start showing next episode her intellect (Just as Hero should start showing his insecurities in the next after that. I’m quite excited about the next episode because it has my favorite scene of the series, I hope they deliver with it.
It’s worth pointing out that we’ve got the voice actors for Lawrence and Holo from Spice & Wolf* talking about economics and politics! So, I’m excited. I’m concerned about the characterization of the Demon Queen – if they make her insecurities the focus of her character, it will be unwatchable to me. And, while jiggle-service is regrettable, I can’t say I object to having a female character who actually looks like a grownup.
*Yes, I know, Wolf & Spice, with Horo 🙂
It is unfortunate that ARMS is the studio that picked this up; the concept is really interesting and the right execution can make it really shine (as seen in the main manga adaptation).
I really enjoyed the dialogue and voice acting (love this cast so much). But it kinda sucks thinking about how any other studio adapting this would have made probably a better product. I’m still glad it’s being made, though. Better a kinda good adaptation with god-tier voice acting than nothing.
One thing that blows about watching people react to adaptations of stories that you love is when they misjudge a character from the first few episodes, or presume something is a plothole when it get’s explained later. Please stick with this, psgels! It will, bar the studio completely fucking it up, be awesome!
Huh… Im skeptical about Mayou
Considering it has the same VAs as Spice & Wolf and a similar setting even, it wasnt even close to its brilliance… I hope this was just a random introduction episode and the real thing starts in the 2nd
And yeah, boobs… So stupid and unnecessary in a show like this
And also, they made the character designs way too mainstream/moe… Its horrible
I checked the manga to compare and especially the girl looks about 20, rather than 15 or so like in the anime, its a huge difference
So yeah, Im afraid they are just gonna butcher the whole thing, sigh
I believe it’s been mentioned before, the two might be similar in certain concepts but are really quite different. Spice and Wolf is brilliant and witty and smart and packed with great dialogue. Maoyuu on the other hand, is not trying to achieve that. It’s sort of educational, about the importance of certain inventions and economic systems (of our world) and why certain things are the way they are. Sort of “World History in a nutshell” thing.
dude their are like 3 different manga’s for this 😐 the anime adapts the novel not the manga
Yeah boobs, I’m not gonna spoil it for you, but this Maoyuu Maou Yuusha is a self aware series. So I’ll just give you a piece of advice think classic RPG logic with economics and you’ve got the right mindset.
Boobs is a running gag from the source material. I think you’ll like the characters soon enough, I dont really understand the need to immediately like characters right off the bat without characterization
being a fan of the story, I am impressed with the amount of info they put into the first episode, all the characters that weren’t meant to appear until later, shows that they’re really trying to add something of their own to the story, i’m pleasantly surprised.
Overly bouncy yet sorta saggy boobs aren’t really my taste though.
Her boobs are creepy and disturbing. Way too high.
lols, they are damn “fine”, they just look the way they do becasue of her low-cut tight dress XD
Mayouu got my attention. Man it’s been too long I didn’t recognize the voice actors. Well other than Sawashiro of course. Of course the series shows some issues, and it’s been mentioned the studio isn’t the best, but it feels promising. The character models leave a bit to be desired but I’m sure personality will make up for it. Everything aside it’s got it’s own charm right? Spice and Wolf was great but I don’t see the point of comparing. It should also be noted that so far the economics aren’t as advanced or explained as well in Mayouu so far. Which in my opinion, counts for a lot when talking about politics/economics.
The studio’s specialty is animating boobs. I mean, look at its history. Anyways, the economic side of things should be interesting as we see many people with conflicting opinions. Good stuff.
The Anime was faithful, but there was too much fan service. The Manga beats the Anime by a thousand’s pace, the fan service that was found in the Manga was not so awkward. I do not like this director… although I admit, the anime turned out much better than I had imagined.
It was sad to see people dismissing ‘Maoyuu Maou Yuusha’ just becasue of the reputation of the studio animating the show, personally as soon as i was done reading the previews and watching the trailers for it i knew that despite the obvious fanservice the show actually has some depth and an interesting premise that deals with economics and politics of war … so far it’s on my list of “to watch” series this season and like Psgels said, the best first episdoe that aired from this season so far.
The question is though will the fanservice however much or how little cause the show to trip over itself. Theres also that it belongs in a romcom or action show where it fits in not in something like this.
Its the economics bit though that sounds a bit stuffy and dull though to me as a premise.
I don’t think the fanservice will get in the way of the story and characters interactions if the director is careful and stays faithful to the source material strong points (which does include fanservice by the way).
And personally i don’t think the entire premise will be an economics lecture/tour .. it will have some political elements and action as well .. what makes it interesting to me is how will they integrate all these elements together in meaningful ways (economics, politics, action, .. and even fanservice) .. if the manage to do so it will be an enjoyable show IMO.
I’ve read the manga of Ore no Kanojo and there’s really nothing to look forward. By the way, the opening song (just the song) of this anime reminded me of those early 2000’s rom-com openings, just saying.
about Ore Shura and the childhood friend trope… I swear, if God drowned a kitten everytime one of those childhood friends characters appear in a romcom, and have NO other card to play than this one, he will drive the entire cat species to extinction. That’s just how overused that trope is.