Some Quick First Impressions: Pet, Murenase! Seton Gakuen, and Majutsushi Orphen

Pet

Short Synopsis: A crime boss uses perception-altering psychic henchmen to erase evidence of his wrongdoing.

Amun’s review:

First of all, I think my colleague below may have missed that the punk in the car from the second half is the boy staring at the television (at least, I think – they both had head scars. Also the smoking guy was at the hospital, and I’m assuming the long haired fellow is the boss). Otherwise, I pretty much agree – this was a bit fast and loose for a first episode. So far, I’m reminded of a terrible show I dropped called Banana Fish, so I’m not feeling very confident in the long run. Who knows, maybe it’s just enough of a mess that it all works out in the end. Probably not.

Potential: 10%

Wooper’s review:

I imagine that a lot of initial reactions to Pet will take issue with its narrative presentation, since it opens with a five-minute sequence that’s not clearly related to what follows. Even the main story takes its sweet time getting to the point, centering on the victim of the main characters’ mental manipulations, rather than the manipulators themselves. Those were both problems for me as well, but my biggest gripe with this show is that it’s boring to look at. Skip to any frame in this episode and watch five sequential cuts, and you’re likely to see five sterile-looking backgrounds, with people and objects arranged unimaginatively on top. The only shot I liked was the airborne cigarette scene, not just because it was the best bit of animation on display, but because there’s purpose to its composition. The water reflects sunlight, encroaching on the left side of the frame; the guard rail in the background is curved, suggesting a diversion from the norm; birds in the background move in slow motion, highlighting Katsuragi’s control of his target’s senses. Nearly every other scene in the episode paled in comparison to this one. The whole show suffers for its poor layout design, leaving me with no faith that it will make good visual use of its unique concept.

Potential: 25%

 

Murenase! Seton Gakuen

Short Synopsis: An animal-hating high school boy enrolls at a high school full of animals.

Wooper’s review:

Murenase Seton Gakuen is a silly, otaku-baiting comedy with its heart in the right place. Most of the male characters have purely animal appearances, while most of the girls are humanoid with furry ears and tails – the demographic for these designs couldn’t be clearer. There’s a scene where a zebra girl has her panties exposed (and they’re not black and white striped for some reason). When anime is so deliberately slanted towards a subset of its viewership, it often feels stupid, or worse, insulting, but this one largely avoids that problem. There’s some good humor here (the donkeys being MTG-playing nerds was my favorite gag), but the show’s saving grace is its emotional core. Yes, really. Wolf girl Ranka’s search for acceptance in someone’s “pack” will be instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever felt isolated or ostracized. The male lead Jin thinks mostly of his own convenience, but ultimately decides to join her pack as thanks for her courage in standing up to a group of bears. Even the moment where she licks his face in happiness is rooted in their character dynamic, despite being so strange on the surface. I doubt Murenase will be one of the season’s best shows, but it’s certainly better than any key visual or PV would suggest.

Potential: 40%

Lenlo’s review:

Christ on a cracker, THIS was not my show. You’d think after Beastars or Africa no Salaryman last season I would be more open to this kind of stuff, but nope. Murenase is just Kemono Friends as an ecchi comedy series. Yes, there is some comedy that I found amusing when it really incorporated animal facts and such. It was unexpectedly smart about that. But the rest of it was your classic slapstick/ecchi stuff, which I tend to ignore because I don’t like it. But then Murenase tries to have some sort of character drama, and it just clashes for me. Like some kind of whiplash, I just didn’t like it. It felt out of place to me, compared to the two shows I mentioned earlier, both of which did either drama or comedy with animals far better. So, the long and short of it is, if you have seen and enjoyed ecchi comedies before, you will probably like Murenase. If you are like me and can’t be bothered to waste your time on 99% of them, then Murenase won’t be changing that now.

Potential: 5%

Amun’s review:
I will show up and write a blurb that I didn’t sign up for just to disagree with Lenlo on this one! Yes, this was a high school setting, yes we just saw a much MUCH better version of this conflict in Beastars. But come on now, if this didn’t tug on your heartstrings a little, go watch Usagi Drop or something for therapy (if you haven’t seen it, by the way, seriously, go watch it). I’m watching and rooting for this show because of HEART. This show may not have the most talent (obviously) – my brain says no, but my heart, my heart says yes. I’m hoping for something like Kaguya-sama: Love is War – on paper quite flat, but where all the elements pull together and become greater than the sum of their parts. Like a pack, one could say!

Potential: 75%

 

Majutsushi Orphen Hagure Tabi

Short Synopsis: An outcast sorcerer bums about town before encountering a dragon from his past.

Mario’s review:

Orphen fails at the most important element: creating engaging characters. There is not a single memorable character, and the main character’s main mode is shouting like there’s no tomorrow. It speaks to the age of the source material, as well. The shouting match fits to early 00s anime like a glove, and the plot so far is too busy establishing the world that it forgets to tell it cohesively. For this first episode for example, the pacing is all over the place. There are many “random” moments, and we can’t feel the impact the girl turning into a dragon has on our main character since we don’t know anything about her, nor their relationship at all. The production is average, points given for the hand-drawn dragon, but apart from that it doesn’t have much to write home about. With the current trend of rebooting the old classic material, Orphen is sadly one of the least memorable ones.

Potential: 10%

Wooper’s review:

When it comes to rebooting classic anime properties, there are two schools of thought. One opts for modernization, changing the character designs, art style, setting, and even tweaking the story for the sake of current audiences (e.g. Parasyte, which was adapted from a manga but fits my criteria). The other recreates the original as best it can, gambling that there’s enough fondness out there for the first version to keep things the same. Orphen definitely falls into the second category, and is probably better for it. The 90s aesthetic gives the characters a cartoony expressiveness while allowing them to exist in a high fantasy series. The backgrounds are more detailed than your average TV show, though their painterly appearance is likely a digital trick. The soundtrack, especially, feels as though it was taken straight from the 1998 version. I’ve never seen it, but I doubt the disco-adjacent track that played in the pub would be composed from scratch for a 2020 anime series. There’s not much to say about the story at this point – here there be mages, dragons, swords, street urchins, etc. It feels familiar, even without having watched the original. As a matter of fact, I’d recommend watching the 90s version instead of this one – at least you’ll get some cel animation out of the experience that way.

Potential: 40%