Magi
Short Synopsis: Our lead character likes boobs.
So this is going to be the new series to occupy the prime time slot of anime: Sunday at 17:00. It’s a tricky time-slot: you can get access to a lot of viewers, but this also resulted in Ayakashi Ayashi being cancelled halfway through due to disappointing rates. For that, Magi has come up with a solution to make people talk about it: boobs. It’s a shame, because people will now remember this show as that show with the really bad boob jokes, rather than remember this for what it is: a Japanese take on Arabic folklore. The animation near the end also was pretty damn good and this episode had a pretty exciting conclusion, but the comic relief on the other hand was just BAD and felt really out of place. It still works somehow though and this episode had a lot of interesting stuff amidst the stuff that makes you facepalm, to the point where I’m willing to see where this one is going.
OP: Couldn’t you really have come up with a better song? I mean, you’re in Arabia for god’s sake. Make use of that opportunity to show some influences there!
ED: Same here: why go for J-pop if using classic Arabian instruments will make it stand out much more?
Potential: 75%
Code: Breaker
Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets a mysterious transfer student.
This opening episode was slightly different from usual. The standard for these kinds of episodes is to be all ove the top and throw in a lot of action. Not here: this episode was more dedicated to show that this series knows its build-up. Most of this episode was quiet, right until the end, where it delivered a number of very solid and intense scenes. That pay-off rocked. The rest though… needs work. The problem with this series is that it tries to be funny by using overused and forced romantic cliches. The entire school aside from the lead couple was very annoying to watch in the way they deitified that main couple, and how they just kept going with it. Still, this feels like a problem that with time will become less significant. This show at least had solid acting for the lead couple, and as long as the school setting will play a very minor role in the rest of the episode, it should be fine.
OP: A bit cheesy, but works as the opening for an action series like this.
ED: This one had a lot of overused j-rock cliches, plus the visuals were mostly just a boring slide-show.
Potential: 80%
Bakuman 3
Short Synopsis: Our lead character writes manga.
Well, I can be very short about this: I’m not going to continue watching Bakuman. Of course it’s interesting to watch a bunch of manga authors work together, but with three seasons, it’s just way too long. This episode reaffirms that I’m just going to waste my time if I want to keep up with this, because it wasn’t about creating mangas, but again focused on these soap opera plot twists that have really gotten old at this point. I guess it was a nice idea for the lead couple to have such an idealistic view on becoming a manga artist and voice actress respectively, but I feel like I’m getting beaten ove the head by all this. That’s why I just couldn’t continue with this show, even though I managed to finish Phi Brain: at least that one knew where its strengths lied and delivered upon that. Bakuman really would have made an amazing anime if they went with a story that fits in 26 episodes. This just goes on for waaaay too long.
OP: Granted, this was the best OP for Bakuman so far.
ED: This is just cheesy J-pop
Potential: 60%
Bakuman is better in manga form because you can read it a lot faster, and choose on which parts to linger.
I also like the manga more than the anime (one of the few series where that is the case). I still watched and enjoyed the first two anime seasons, and I’ll be watching this season- although I’ll probably be waiting until its over so I can watch it all at once.
Just to reassure you: If the anime doesn’t change a lot, there won’t be many boob jokes in Magi. I didn’t watch the first episode yet, but while the start is a bit silly (Since I didn’t watch it yet, I don’t know about the anime, but the manga was hilarious in the beginning, I hope they won’t cut out Elizabeth.) the series gets a lot more dramatic with political conspiracies and so on. It has a really interesting story. And the characters get a lot of space to develop.
Oh, and while Code:Breaker is really good and interesting in the beginning (I really loved it) I lost interest in it a while back, when it degenerated into a genereic shounen fighting series à la Bleach with powerup after powerup.
And I agree on Bakuman. It’s a lot more interesting in Manga form. I stopped watching it after a few episodes, because it took too long. The Manga, however, was an interesting read and I liked it quite a lot.
wow a comment i agree with xD you nailed it spot on hal
Cool. Really looking forward to Magi a lot.
I hope the anime version can compensate for that with Code:Breaker since it looks really good.
I’m also really looking forward to Blast of Tempest, Psycho-Pass and more From the New World.
Hopefully this will be a fulfilling season.
The Magi manga was an interesting fantasy/adventure, while Code:Breaker bored me to tears. Sure they can mess up Magi, but I don’t see the Code:Breaker source material being interesting enough to do anything good with.
I agree with pretty much everything. Magi could be quite good depending on how they chose to adapt it.
Well if you think about it, the Middle Eastern peeps in the olden days are pretty sexist and women are part of the men’s “fun” so the boobs part actually kinda strangely fits.
You guys should really, REALLY stick to what you know and not spout this kinda crap.
Also : “a Japanese take on Arabic folklore” –> Persian.
What you said is so wrong (I’m from the Middle East, so I know all about it)
@Chiarissimo: If you meant Persian folklore instead of Arabic, then you are mistaken. It is actually Arabic with some stories that have roots that goes to Indian and Persian cultures, but mostly Arabic stories happening in Arabic cities
@ahelo Sexist as women having the right to independently own property in the Abbasid Caliphate! Hmm, I wonder how many women could own property in Medieval Europe during the time without some sort of special circumstance?? Oh right, that is zero.
Just a detail about Code Breaker : I am surprised that Japanese authors had the naiveness of showing her “strong” at aikido. That’s because aikido doesn’t work. I know, I went beyond black belt and it still didn’t work as soon as a beginner wanted to resist.
It works wonderfully if the partner has accepted to lose before starting. That’s how you get your grades in aikido dojos, spending years imagining you’re strong by throwing partners who accept to fall, and showing no resistance to partners who make you fall.
Makes gracious moves though. But yeah, no woman, even a post-black-belt instructor, could make a strong man fall with aikido if he doesn’t want to. And even a total beginner at aikido, but with normal strength at judo or karate can defeat her immediately.
Heck even top notch international grade aikido instructors need complacent partners for giving lessons in dojos.
I dabbled in Aikido for a couple months, and to my beginning mind, it was just the opposite. Aikido uses moves that focus on twisting joints where muscles don’t provide much resistance. It may be possible to train those muscles, I don’t know. But against the untrained person? It’s damn effective.
In fact, I felt like Aikido moves resembled banned wrestling moves a lot. Stuff like chickenwing, that was too dangerous to be used in real competitions, but still used in “pro” (fake) wrestling.
If you get them in the right position, you indeed can get people in a situation where they can’t move. The problem is that people are going to want to resist those attempts. Try pulling those moves on a big guy who is trying to attack you; that’s virtually impossible.
Just gonna say I wouldn’t think the animating studio are necessarily off with the boob jokes in that the series’ main character, actually 2 major characters, have a boob fetish 😛
Code Breaker feels like a Phantom of the Inferno fanfic.
about Magi, the boobs scene (and some more to come but more esporadicately) is from the manga, in fact the fist part of it seems a bit slow, but the plot turns to amazing soon enough. I agree with you about the OP and ED, but there were a couple of BGM that sent me to the arabian nights’ world.
I don’t see what was wrong with the boobs here in Magi to be honest… you should know best that there is FAR worse out there. Far far far. Your review actually made me a bit disappointed beforehand, but that was really unnecessary. I for myself really liked that first episode quite a lot after watching it. I didn’t found the manboob-thing to be bad, neither the other. They WERE in a kind of brothel after all, which fits good into an Arabian setting imo… The girls also weren’t of the obnoxious kind, and he’s just a little boy playing around… I can’t say that I was entertained too much by this either, but you know, I just didn’t care. Because no one really did.
Really, I didn’t consider any of this as annoying fanservice. It lately gets very tiring if you only score an episode after how many boobs flashed up or were involved in some scene… There were TWO minor scenes involving boobs (one, manboobs) – How can you call that a show that might be “only remembered for its bad boob jokes”? There were so many nice scenes besides that which you didn’t mention at all… Well boobs boobs boobs