Some Quick First Impressions: Kakegurui, Hina Logi – From Luck & Logic and Katsugeki Touken Ranbu

Kakegurui

Short Synopsis: A girl transfers to a school where students engage in high stakes gambling.

This series has one of the worst cases of unnecessary school setting that i have ever seen. By all accounts it makes no sense whatsoever for a school to approve itself turning into a gambling den as soon as classes are over or that anyone would tolerate kids gambling real money and getting reduced to a slave. It’s honestly funny that when a gamble is declared they pretty much transform the room to match. Still this isn’t supposed to make any real sense and the ridiculous nature is part of the overall fun. The death note director was perfect for this show really, he can bump even the most mundane actions right up to 11. I must ask though, why is there so much fanservice in the opening and ending? I may be mistaken but I don’t remember the manga being all that fanservice heavy. Well anyway if you happen to like shows with mind games then this is most certainly your jam. However I will say that what you see here is the only thing you are going to get for the rest of it’s run. That could be fine for some but let me say not to expect much else from this show. This is the only trick it’s got so it’s lucky that it’s a damn good trick.

Potential: 75%

 

Mario: “Ridiculous” is a word of the day. Kakegurui embraces its premise of gambling wholeheartedly that I don’t think you’d have hard time figuring out if this series is your thing or not. To add more dark effects to the topic of gambling and how characters lose themselves for the game: creepy smiles, red eyes, deranged faces are all featured frequently here, coupling with cheating, game manipulating and slavery and you have quite a no-hold-bar, cynical beast of anime about the thrilling of gambling – play with the devil as they say. I did notice there are more still frames than necessary so I hope the animation quality won’t drop too jarring on coming episodes. Characters here are decidedly love it or hate it so don’t expect any real development from the cast save maybe the love interest between the two leads. We’re here for gambling and whatever bets and games they come up with so if you find those intriguing then it’s your thing. I certainly expected more than “Rock-scissor-paper” variations but as an introduction it did its job. Take it or leave it Kakegurui sure leaves its mark boldly.

Potential: 60%

 

Hina Logi – From Luck & Logic

Short Synopsis:  The daily cute adventures of magical girls in school

You know maybe I should make a special test like the bechdel test wherein if a anime throws it’s female characters in a hot spring in the first episode when it doesn’t have a hot spring setting that it will automatically be terrible. Off the top of my head I can’t think of shows that could be the exception. So I am still wondering why this exists, for I don’t remember luck & logic being smash success but apparently now it’s magical girls doing cute things and stuff. Oh joy. Full disclosure, I did start skimming through the episode when I found my attention span ebbing away. I don’t normally do that but it was getting late and I will be damned if i lose shut eye over this show. So what I could summarize of the appeal of this show is yuri undertones, girls talking about stuff I really couldn’t care less about and some girl with plant powers trying to assault one of the main heroines. I admit that maybe I should have given this a fairer shot but let’s be blunt, it doesn’t deserve it.

Potential: 0%

 

Mario:  Well, Hina Logi is a magical girl slash cute girl doing cute things anime, so right off the bat you know what you’re getting into. The show details the everyday school day of those girls before graduating into a magical girl, and there’s some hints that they will have to fight off monsters at the end of the season. Although based on its cheering tone I’d think the monsters are your typical bad guy, no grey moral here. Other thing I did notice from those kinds of shows is where all the male gone? Even that mascot is a female for Peter sake. I like the design of the academy though, and I think they know it as well as they show the academy multiple times from different views. Girls are your typical character stocks here so there’s nothing to write home about. I believe if you skip this one you won’t miss out much.

Potential: 0%

 

Katsugeki Touken Ranbu

Short Synopsis: Time traveling samurai in the edo period try to stop monsters from altering history

Why would you invent a story with time travel and then restrict to just one time period? What a waste. So this story feels familiar as I certainly remember an anime about a bunch of samurai protecting time. Though this is more likely the original story based on the quality. My first impression of it was correct. It’s pretty but not much in terms of substance. I thought we might get something interesting when one of our two leads starts lecturing his partner on how they cannot alter historic events. However that is really undercut when literally minutes later they save a child and brush it off easily. I also wonder why no one in the past is questioning the giant weird fox thing that’s following our main characters. Also on that front why are they using swords instead of guns? I originally thought it was due to some prohibited law or something up until another character arrives with a gun. So I just don’t get why they are making their job more difficult. Action scenes are great, frankly the production is more than this series deserves. Character though are very bland and the cast feels like Bishi bait. Overall it’s a fairly watchable piece but the story lacks anything to truly grip the viewer.

Potential: 40%

 

Mario: The animation here is seriously great, you can’t go wrong with ufotable huh. Story-wise, I must compare this show to Touken Ranbu: Hamanaru few seasons back to see how this one works while the other didn’t. Hanamaru starts off with introducing most of the main cast (about dozen of them) before picking some for the battle; as a result we don’t remember most of them and the light tone doesn’t mesh well at all with the battle in latter half. Here in Katsugeki it’s the opposite, we focus on 2 guys with various missions before other swordmen showing up. Doing it this way allow us to know more about these 2 main characters (although the moping guy is a dead weight), their chemistry and the difficult level their jobs are. Honestly I prefer it this way, and this show also back up by some truly outstanding animation and mostly great character designs. They say it’s a shame that ufotable choose this project rather than Fate franchise but maybe doing it this way we gonna have 2 solid shows in our hands. Definitely recommended.

Potential: 50%