Nichijou
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a random schoolgirl.
There’s no shortage of creativity in Nichijou. Its entire premise is based around the fact that it’s about the every day lives of a group of random school girls who live in a world in which anything can happen. This episode shows random explosions, androids and goats and the characters don’t even seem to find them unusual. That’s what’s good about Nichijuo. Its problem is that that’s also pretty much the only praise I have for this series. Unlike K-On and Lucky Star, this show tries to be a comedy… and it’s just not funny. It does not know what punchlines are, nor how to build up a good joke. It’s full of randomness for the sake of randomness, and seems to believe that just by doing something completely random, it can get funny, though such a thing already got old in the OVA. In the same way, the characters aren’t much to write home about. Kyoani has this thing with characters who are cute for the sake of being cute, and this is no exception. Nichijou just tries way too hard to be mainstream and popular. It’s just too forced.
OP: Badly sung and not really special.
ED: Again a boring song with that just feels like a copy paste of just about every other ED out there.
Potential: 30%
Dog Days
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the legendary savior for a country of dog people.
That was just insulting. This show had the privilege of being anime original, and yet the creators actually come with this kind of crap? The creators of Nanoha A’s have sunk to a completely new depth here. this was by far the worst I’ve ever seen from them. I can see the intentions of the creators: creating a fantasy setting where two countries have to participate in all kinds of fantastic games at fantastic setting hols potential to be an enjoyable and fun series. But this was just so ridiculously poorly executed. It committed just about every flaw imaginable. The characters are a joke, the setting of having dog people fight cat people, surrounded by teenagers with unexplained superpowers is equal to a slap in the face. The character designs are utterly terrible, the script is abysmal, and the worst thing is that it actually believes that it’s funny and witty. It refuses to make proper use of its silly setting, and it doesn’t even make jokes. It just expects tot get laughs from… nothing. This is… this is even worse than Rio Rainbow Gate. At least that series was aware that it was terrible.
OP: Boring visuals and boring song.
ED: Ridiculously generic.
Potential: 0%
X-Men
Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are a bunch of mutants who fight crime.
That was actually… pretty amazing here. Seriously, this episode hit a ton of right buttons, and sets the X-Men already one step higher above Wolverine. The graphics were utterly gorgeous, the atmosphere is just awesome, and already this show has put in a lot of characterization for its five main characters: Xavier, Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine and Beast. The atmosphere is heavy and the drama tends to get a bit sappy at times, but it all works surprisingly well with each other. Plus, this show also isn’t afraid to sometimes toy with its characters (the joke around Wolverine’s entrance especially was hilarious, in a “couldn’t resist”-way). As for Madhouse’s usual acting problem: the thing is that the character-designs of this series are utterly amazing. The creators not only gave a wonderful rendition of the X-Men in anime form, but they gave every single character, even the minor ones, a unique and individual look. That’s obviously harder to animate, but even then the animators do a pretty good job here. Instead, my qualm is that the voice actors should have tried to be a bit more varied, and they’re a tad too hammy at times. On the other hand though, the soundtrack is yet again amazing, and at this rate it could get even better than Wolverine’s. Seriously, ti’s been a while since the start of a season has been this impressive.
OP: Best one of the Marvel Anime so far!
ED: Again, no vocals, and a good way to close off each episode.
Potential: 85%
Now I’ll definitely have to check it out. X-Men is probably the only Marvel anime I wanted to see. I’ve been a fan of them since I was a kid. They got me into comics in the first place.
This was way better then I had hopes. Yes… Wolverine looks like he had a few too many steroid shots, but everything is else is awesome. Sure… I have to get used to the voices… but hey… looking good.
Also, the OST is fantastic. The song played during the summon… superb.
Most importantly, what’s the moe factor of this show? You really should warn your readers about ugly characters before recommending these shows. I couldn’t get past Wolverine ep4 because of the Yukio induced nausea and vomiting.
Kyubey: the thing is, that I don’t really consider Yukio to be that ugly, so I can’t really answer your question. Character designs that I tend to find ugly are the generic ones like OreTsuba, or Starry Sky.
If you’re looking for teenaged girls though, then this is the wrong show for you. Storm looks great, though.
So far, Jean and Storm are both HOT (one more literelly then the other…), and Hisako is cute. So yeah… there’s some eye candy to go around. Oh, and did I meantion Storm is hot? Well, I’ll mention it again. Storm is hot.
This definitely looks like the priciest of the adaptations. The soundtrack is pretty energetic, and I was duly impressed by it. The character designs are interesting: the males have the North American comic muscle tone, and the females have been made cuter; something of a mix of styles.
Psgels, do you like Kishida Mel’s character designs (Rorona, Hanasaku Iroha)?
DmonHiro, I’ll check it out then. It’ll be interesting to see how they drew Storm and Jean. Never heard of this Hisako character before.
Haven’t heard of Rorona, but I consider Hana-Saku Iroha’s character designs to be pretty decent: neither great, but I wouldn’t call them ugly.
Hisako is a newer member on the X-Men in the comics, her code name is Armor. She looks nothing like she does in the comics though. In the anime, she kind of looks like Naruto’s Hinata.
I am unbelievably bothered and completely disagree with your First Look at Nichijou. Especially on the music.
I read your review, then went to see the manga thinking maybe you just have problems with the random and maybe I could still enjoy it. I have to say I agree with you, didn’t found it funny at all and I doubt the anime can be much better. Comedy mangas like Kill me baby! or D-frag would be great anime series in comparison to this.
“It does not know what punchlines are, nor how to build up a good joke.”
Seen too much of stand-up comedy ? Arguably the lowest form of comedy ? Not every form of humour even needs a punchline or build up. Wiki “surreal humour” and educate yourself.
Same opinions on Nichijou. I really like its uniqueness but… *sigh*
I’m sad about Dogs Days…
Looking forward to X-Men then *_*
I read your short synopsis on Dog Days before actually watching it and it made me laugh: nothing can be that bad, right?
Then I watched it… I take it back. I am saddened by how right you were.
Did you say Dragon Crisis was bad? I thoroughly convinced that Dog Days has the potential to be worse after glancing over the first episode, as crazy as that may sound…
I actually thought Dog Days was okay. The lead has a life and isn’t bland, the concept I think actually has potential going beyond zany hijinks (actual war = forced drama by the bucketloads), and overall it’s not too insulting to taste.
Consider it is an anime original, you honestly can’t forgive the generic harem sugar and generic fantasy staples, but otherwise I have seen far far worse. It doesn’t seem too obnoxious so far, or even trying too hard, so unless it does likely get worse then it can at least be a bit of weekly mindless fluff, which is harder to be than it seems.
omg! i totally agreed with you about dog days. even though the character designs wasn’t my taste, i thought the storyline would hold the torch for this “original” anime. the dog versus cats kinda remind me of Yumekui Merry’s summary about “going against cats”. this concept would be so cool if the designs weren’t silly cute and have an actual good plot. However, this anime, “dog days” totally disgust me. the battlefield playing sports thing, the chocobo wanna be, and the news castings/whatever talking/silliness during the battle when their home territory castle is on the line? i seriously could not pass the 12-14 minute mark for this anime.
Whenever Storm shows up, I always end up looking at her bewbs. I’m a girl.
Watching Dog Days. It isn’t that bad. It’s bearable. I’ve seen worse. The human characters are nice. I actually like the main. I’m glad he isn’t wimpy. When he first jumped from the 2nd floor, I was like…OMG. WTF. And laughed. I actually liked it xD I think it’s only the main character I like so I might watch the rest of the episodes. I do agree that it’s generic. Maybe it’s not just your taste, psgel.
This episode was fantastic! I can’t say enough good things about it.
Two issues I had with wolverine immediately resolved here: -Wolverine now actually looks like wolverine. -The focus now seems to be on some of the main characters and storylines of the x-men universe.
The art and OST are amazing and judging from the opening and ending sequence, it looks like a some of the coolest characters will get screentime (mystique, emma frost, and oh fuck is that apocalypse?).
Agree that storm looks great as well.
Nichijou is pretty good in terms of animation and pacing (very relax and calm),and I really like the (face) expressions of the characters, though the comedy is perhaps too subtle for some people. Personally, I like this kind of subtle comedy (Yeah, better than Lucky Star).
Dog Days is a huge dissapointment to me, especially when I expected something like Nanoha, but this is boring and uninspired
Just wanted to give another perspective of Dog Days. Psgel and I have a similar taste, but not alike. Dog Days is light-hearted, like, indeed, a dream as what the main character believes. It’s an interesting concept in my opinion. It reverses the typical setting and objective of the summoned hero in the war, which is not really to turn the tides of the battle by killing everyone. The focus steers away from the usual drama about war too. I’m just wondering where there’d be going then.
I’ll keep on checking the rest of the episodes. I do have a pretty good feeling about Dog Days.
Nichijou’s design looks almost the same as Gag Manga Biyori (shinigami in mind – what is K.Y.?). A couple of funny ones. But the unfunny ones outweighes them.
Also, I wonder if this is the first time in Japanes anime that they use a Malay language phrase (Selamat Pagi)?
Nanoha’s first episode wasn’t special either. Just saying…
I like how Storm looks kinda like she does in the movies (Halle Berry version) rather than the comic versions (which are meh to me). All the characters actually look pretty amazing in this adaptation.
Also, Nichijou’s first episode was a ton better than the OVA (which got boring fast). I hope they can keep it up.
interesting, the way you are buttering up X-men here, Madhouse must be improving on how they animate those 4 Marvel series as they go…
wow x-men was really good, did not expected that.
Nichijou was interesting. Some missed jokes here and there but I like what they’re trying to do.
X-Men didn’t really work for me. I think I will pass on it, it feels too Marvel comic for me and the stories….I just end up not liking them. I guess I was hoping for a fresh look at those characters.
Nichijou, almost wants to work but can’t quite get there. I applaud the effort but it feels like it’s working too hard for every joke. You can just feel the strain in every scene.
Good comedy is transparent and you don’t notice the timing of it.
I don’t see this show as something that will be absurd and funny like Gintama but I will check it out again. I am interested to check and see if it they can improve.
I assume you’ve never heard of Hyadain before? :/