So, just to make sure I went back to the episode 01 that aired a week ago. It’s completely new again. Stop being so confusing with your episode numbers!
So, to recap:
– The episodes 03, 05, 08 and 09 that aired during the past week are the same as episodes 01, 02, 03 and 04 that were released as preview episodes back in January and February.
– The episodes 01 and 02 that aired during the past two weeks have new content.
– Do not ask me why the creators found it a good idea to just randomly select four episodes and reshuffle them into preview episodes.
It feels a bit weird to watch this opening episode while already having seen five other episodes, but it does fit as an opening much better than the “fake” first episode, which did bring in a lot of random drama around Kouhei and his father. This episode introduced all of the characters, it established Kouhei’s father as someone with anger management problems despite his good intentions, we finally see Kouhei’s sister’s crush formally introduced. And to my surprise that bearded guy from episode two is a recurring character. Seriously, he looks a bit like a rapist or something…
Strangely enough, this episode had exactly three shots where the animation was much, much better than the rest of this series. It’s really obvious that this was meant to be the first episode, which baffles me even more that they didn’t use that animation for the first preview episode. I mean, isn’t the entire point of spending a lot of the animation budget on the first episode the fact that it’s supposed to improve the FIRST impressions? It defeats the purpose a bit to use this as a fifth impression…
Now, because it was meant to introduce everything, this episode probably established the least in comparison to all of the other episodes. Most of the things introduced were already established in the episodes that preceded it, and it never really got to look at the characters in-depth. The previous episodes were all wonderfully varied and all had their own focus, so this episode wasn’t among the best of this series.
Rating: * (Good)
i just hope someone subs this…the more you blog about it the more I want to see it!
Agreeing w/ previous poster, kat, that I’ve been hoping ever since the first spring charts came out that this would get picked up by one of the subbers. Reading your thoughts and seeing screenshots tickles my envy!
The odd airing order alone makes me want to watch this. If nobody’s subbing it I’m out of luck though.
How is it watching things and not knowing they’re out of order? Does it make it difficult to understand? Or do you just put things together as you’re watching it?
Pafiume: when I watched these first four episodes, I did not notice anything, although looking back, they indeed were quite disjointed. It’s nice to see these first two episodes fill in all of the things I missed, though. ^^;
People should stop subbing naruto crap and sub this T_T