The Rolling Girls
Short Synopsis: What did I just watch?
I am just going to break it to you. I have no idea what to think of this show. This is a work by the same studio who animated Attack on titan. It is an anime original show (meaning it is not based on anything) and is about as far away from Attack on Titan as you can get. My understanding of the story is a little vague but from what I understand the world leaders have disappeared and this has resulted in Japan breaking into independent provinces which are at war. So sort of a present day sengoku jidai. But then there’s also these gangs with superpowered individuals called the best. And one of them fights in a tonkatsu outfit for some reason and there’s some girl from another province who fights with a giant hairpin. Ok, that’s enough about the story, I am not going to get it at this point. The characters are interesting and the animation is rather colourful with lots of movement. The story is told in a humorous way so it’s clear it’s not taking itself very seriously. That may be the thing that’s putting me off so much. It reminds me of a studio trigger work in it’s style and execution. Once you can get past it’s rather odd setting I think this could be a good show.
Potential: 60%
Yoru no Yatterman
Short Synopsis: The descendants of a group of exiled villains take up the mantle of their ancestors.
Now this is interesting. This is a sort of reboot to an age old show called Yatterman that aired way back in the 70s. However rather than take the perspective of the heroes descendants, they decide to follow the exploits of the villains ancestors. The story is simplistic but I just love the idea. This first episode is mainly to do with why the girl decides to bring back the Yatterman’s enemy, the Dorombo thieves. It is unfortunate that they took the route of making the heroes more villainous in order to get you to root for the villains but I am interested to see how this rag tag group intends to strike back at the so far dystopian looking Yatterman kingdom. The question is what can we do with this. If it’s a tale of this group growing from nothing to a great powerful threat to the kingdom then I am sold. The animation was also quite impressive.
OP: I like it.
Potential: 80%
Sengoku Musou
Short Synopsis: Too many cooks.
This seems to be a video game adaption of a game called Samurai warriors which is a spinoff to the dynasty warriors series. It is also a game based loosely around the sengoku jidai. Now I have a little knowledge on the sengoku jidai. And I cannot stress the little enough. But one of the problems of basing a story around it is the number of characters in the story. That is essentially the problem here. There are far too many characters. So many that the only introduction they get is to show a subtitle pointing out each of their names when they show up. Out of everyone there I just saw a group of bland one dimensional characters. There is some good action but still frames and speed lines as well. The soundtrack has nice use of japanese instruments. I am going to be fair and say that I have difficulty with stories based in this setting. So I could just have a problem of not knowing enough about the era to get invested. But from what I saw here I can’t say it has inspired me to educate myself. As I feel that even if I did know about this period of history that I would still find this uninteresting and likely insulting.
OP: Again nice use of traditional japanese instruments. Other than that nothing noteworthy.
Potential: 0%
Rolling Girls looks amazing, but I was troubled by the sidetrack to the amusement park. A bus shows up and you just go? Of course it’s a trap – you’re in the middle of a war! I don’t mind random, nonsensical things, but characters acting stupid just to move the plot along doesn’t bode well for me. According to MAL this is the scriptwriter’s only credit. Here’s hoping it’s not another beautiful-but-stupid show.