As for the series I’m not blogging:
– Kämpfer is just yet another stereotypical fighting show with no depth whatsoever.
– Nyan Koi had a really disappointing and shallow second episode. Plus, it’s obvious that the creators have never owned cats.
As for the Book of Bantorra, I think it was pretty obvious that I was going to blog this. Barring the sequels, it featured for me the best first episode of the new season so far and it looks to be another hit for newcomer David Production. This time, they might not have such a powerhouse behind the direction, but the premise has quite a few nice ideas thrown into it, there are lots of characters, all with different morals and values, and this episode showed yet again that it can deliver very nice action-scenes, even with its clearly limited budget. All in all, a very intriguing series.
The director didn’t handle any series I know, but this guy seems very experienced, with a lot of different series under his belt. I’m also very happy with the one who’s behind the series composition: Mari Okada. She wrote the script for a lot of the episodes of Simoun, and did the series composition for a lot of different series, including True Tears, Sasami Mahou Shoujo Club, Canaan and Vampire Knight (which may have sucked, but I heard that it was the best possible adaptation that the really mediocre manga could have gotten). That’s definitely a plus when animating a series of light novels with such a big setting.
The art director is also an interesting one, because Shigemi Ikeda is an artist with a huge amount of experience: the list of series he did the art direction for just goes on and on, and the result show in this episode in the architecture. You really need a lot of creativity to come up with these complex structures. A job well done, if I say so. The soundtrack also is done by the Death Note soundtrack guy, who also composed the scores for Himitsu and Real Drive, which means an excellent soundtrack as well.
But yeah, the weakest point in this series really is the direction, in the way that the quality control tends to be a bit off at times. This episode most notably showed that in the sudden increase of the already huge cleavage of the director, or how the widow of the guy who was killed by Coolio’s friend suddenly chose Colio of all people to talk to was also a bit too coincidental. Nevertheless, when compared to Shangri-la last season there are far less assaults to my suspense of disbelief, so there shouldn’t be any major problems there as long as the creators continue to keep the rest of this series interesting.
Volken also seems like an interesting male lead: he’s an adult for one, and he’s an interesting combination of an capable commander with strong morals, and a naive subordinate with a lot of potential for growth inside of him. He’s able to stand out as the lead character, and yet he doesn’t hog all the screen-time for himself (in fact, that meat guy has gotten more screen-time than he did in this episode). Hamyuts also has the potential to become a very interesting villain, the way she has been portrayed in the past two episodes: as long as she isn’t going to end up as a static character, the creators can do a lot of great things with her. I especially like how she likes to do things herself, instead of sitting in her chair, looking evil.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Never owned a cat? :/ I was kind of looking forward to that one as well. 🙁
Yeah, the cats unfortunately don’t act like cats at all. At least there’s still Kuruneko, but I’m not sure whether that series has been subbed lately…
Nyan Koi indeed had potential, but episode 2 somehow decided to turn it into a harem in the shallowest way possible.
the laughing witch seems like an interesting character, except for that stupid cat thing she did
are you sure Volken IS a main chracter I was under the impression that it was actually the meat guy from the start. Volken looks more like your typical Lancer . For that matter while Hamyuts is batle crzaed and seems to be plotting something she is technically a leader of the good guys. I kind of seen people from the evil church as antagonists not her.
I knew you were going to blog this even before you posted your first impressions xD Hehe~
I love this series but I didn’t research on the staff. Interesting people working on it~
Sometimes I think Hamyuts and the church are both evil or something…well anyways cool that your blogging this. Seems to be getting interesting.
And the cat trick done by the Saint was incredibly corny.
Yea. I voted for this in the “2 shows to blog” poll and I have not been disappointed yet.
The twirling slingshot sniping was one of the best things I have seen this year in any medium.
Glad it is up to my standards. Hope Trapeze is as well (my other show I voted for). There was one weird trailer on Youtube. I still have hope it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LWpeqFGO74
Hmmm… that was one good cliff hanger. This episode did such a good job giving the meat people enough depth that I actually felt nauseous when that woman Hamyuts? start killing them off.
Since this series is an adaptation of light novels, I have a very good feeling that the story will not disappoint. Though, the sheer number of characters introduced in just two episodes doesn’t fazed me at all since the anime series Baccano! quickly came to mind.