Some quick first impressions: Queen’s Blade, Sengoku Basara and Asura Cryin’

Queen’s Blade

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has boobs.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (No)
Seriously, what the heck happened to the clothes of those women? Even the characters of Ikkitousen wore more than these… things. Every single thing in this show is simply to generate as much fanservice as possible. Evil demons don’t specialize in easy and efficient ways to kill, but instead on ways to dissolve clothing while preventing any flesh wounds from forming. Characters’ bodies are apparently very oily (courtesy of very bad shading), but I guess that the weather must be very hot around these parts. That makes me feel sorry for those fully dressed male guards, though. Obviously, this show is going to be bad, and I have no intention to wait to see how badly the plot falls apart in the end.

Sengoku Basara

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is young, has lots of powers and leads an army.
Chance of me Blogging: 10% (The rest of the season has to be really bad for that to happen)
Okay, while this is at least a bit more like it, the only thing about Sengoku Basara that didn’t feel utterly generic was the bit with the CG dancing samurai in the OP, and that isn’t exactly something to be proud of. Here we yet again have an extremely powerful teenager who can take on armies at a time, and the gimmick of this show seems to be lots of exciting medieval warfare. Unfortunately there’s nothing that really catches your attention. The characters were just way too busy trying to look cool, instead of trying to go somewhere. In fact, I really wonder why everyone walks around accompanied by half an army in these series. I mean, the main characters can each wipe out half a city in an instant if they wanted to. What kind of difference did they really think that those puny men without any powers could make on the opponent? In fact, since this is a show about medieval warfare… how come those characters aren’t massively wiping out cities in the first place?

Asura Cryin’

Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets lots of cure girls including a ghost one.
Chance of me Blogging: 10% (Only if the rest of the season is really bad)
Oh, the incredibly generic character-designs! Throughout the entire episode I was facepalming at all of the incredibly bad and overdone clichés that appeared throughout this episode. To just name a few: the house with romantic cherry blossoms growing next to it, an OP with the lead female naked for no reason whatsoever, an OP that actually tries to rip off the ALI-project of all things, the generic male lead surrounded by lots of cute girls, the big breasted classmate who gets admired by every single guy in school APART from the male lead, the very annoying male classmate who never stops whining, et cetera. But, the good news is that there’s potential! There’s a huge back-story behind everything, which actually sounds mysterious enough to work. Let’s hope that the future episodes will cut down on the stereotypes, but there’s a chance that this could turn into something worthwhile.

24 thoughts on “Some quick first impressions: Queen’s Blade, Sengoku Basara and Asura Cryin’

  1. I don’t think Sengoku Basara is supposed to be about medieval warfare – in fact, I don’t think it’s meant to be taken seriously (at this point, anyway). The entire episode was basically nothing else but macho posturing and hilariously overboard dialogue with famous seiyuu and some excuse of a plot shoehorned in.

    I thought the episode was hilarious but, well, that’s just me. (WTF Masamune leads a bike gang! :D)

  2. still….the real meat of this season hasn’t comin’ up yet…
    Shangri-la,Eden of the East,07-Ghost,Saki,K-ON!,Tears to Tiara,Valkyria Chronicle,Pandora Hearts,Konichiwa Anne prequel,Ristorante Paradiso,Natsu no Arashi, ,Guinn Saga,Phantom -requiem- and many more will coming up in an instant.

    Some of them are really promising…especially Shangri-la,Eden of the East,and Phantom -Requiem-….

  3. Queens Blade is probably going to be the anime we all watch but won’t admit to watching.

    I wonder if /a/ has found their new banner?

  4. Nothing has impressed so far this season, but the shows I am really looking forward to haven’t started yet. Basara might be cheesy fun…

    “Our lead character has boobs.” I laughed 😛

  5. Asura Crying looks so generic its pitiful

    and the name of the show pisses me off for some reason as well

  6. “an OP that actually tries to rip off the ALI-project of all things”
    That, right there, is scraping the bottom of the barrel, folks.

    The other two though, look fun. That is, if you’re don’t mind a lack of life-changing revelations or masterful portrayals of the human condition, they seem abundant in ridiculousness and cheesy amusement.

  7. “an OP that actually tries to rip off the ALI-project of all things”

    You were really looking hard for things to make fun of weren’t you? Do you even know who angela is? They sounds _NOTHING_ like the pile of shit known as Ali Project.

    My opinion of you has dropped a little.

  8. We’re all going to watch Queen’s blade. And either not admit it out of shame. Or be completely shameless about it.

  9. Kraker2k: I indeed know very well who Angela is. I really liked what she did with Shikabane Hime’s OP, which is why it upset me so much to hear her try to imitate the ALI Project here.

  10. So, in summary:

    Queen’s Blade: Tits, not going to watch.
    Basara: Not interested.
    Asura: The synopsis of the show said that it was about one guy and the ghost girl. Finding out that there’s many girls now disappoints me. I was actually looking forward to this.

  11. Meh Asura OP sounded like typical current Angela stuff.. which is crap. And god if you’re going to mention good Angela songs at least bring up a good song, Shikabane’s OP along with Asura’s is a perfect example of Angela falling off, nowhere near as good as the op for Fafner.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNIjvyxtQFM

  12. Well, it’s really strange, angela used to make songs for crappy anime before but it doesn’t mean that those songs were crap. As for now… Maybe this anime is so baaad they couldn’t write a better song?) Shikabane’s OP\ED were fine for me, though I admit Gravitation (from Heroic age) was their last really good work. Lots of japanese groups are disappointing lately… and anime… Somethin in this world went wrong.(

  13. What exactly did you expect from Queen’s Blade? Have you never heard or seen anything from it before? If you had at least seen any of the figures or artboot drawings, you’d expect nothing but something really absurd. My only complaint is that its animation looks fairly cheap and low budget. I mean I expect nothing but eye candy and tittytainment from it. Of course, it isn’t realistic to expect it to look as good as drawings in an artbook. As this isn’t possible – not with a low budget anyway – I wonder why they bothered. The same goes for Tenjou Tenge or Ikkitousen. The animated versions look so poor and low detailed in comparision that they just aren’t sexy anymore. And without that it’s fairly pointless. It’s like a thriller without thrill or a comedy without any funny moments.

    The point for not watching Queen’s Blade isn’t that it’s mindless, absurd and stupid. The reason is, it just doesn’t look good. It’s visually unconvincing.

  14. I think the whole Angela dislike is coming from her apparent change in music style. She seems to have toned down the CRASHINGLY EPIC style and gone for a plainer style, which is still good if you never heard her earlier stuff.

  15. Denizen: You know, they always had lot of songs that were not so “epic” but still good. Love songs, “light” songs, epic songs – but with something special. They were not on they same level with most of jpop, until now. They lost something unique and gained something plain (mostly in music, Atsuko’s voice is still good). Well, I’m still a fan and Beautiful Fighter is in my player.)

  16. I tend to enjoy everything because I never thought of how cliche or generic something is. I just enjoy for what it is. Anyway, seems like some people blow off the series just after only 1 episode. I think it’s better if you you wait at least 3 episodes or better around 6 before deciding. Reminds me of how Regios was. The first episode of Regios was nice but very generic. However, so far, the series have been very consistent and always give something worthwhile to watch. Who knows, Asura Cryin might turn out to be one of them.

    @ BlueYoshi

    Of course. Like any series, there are many guys and girls right? So far, I only see two that’s might become interested in him. The ghost girl and the miko girl. Don’t feel like the other girls yet.

  17. I’m just curious…but for all the critiques on art and animation…how many of you are animators and artists? Who draw and sketch and have been through an animating class?

  18. You are wrong about Sengoku Basara. For starters, you kinda have to have the army of little people for two reasons: to show off the might of the main character who crushes them, and to show that they are captains or generals or whatever their military rank. I mean seriously, when have you ever seen someone like that march into battle on their lonesome? They have to have their minions!!!
    And it isn’t really about medieval warfare. Its more along the lines of who is top dog kinda thing.
    And its ok to be proud of the dancing samurai. I am!
    Personally, I find this show quite amusing.

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