Author: psgels

Valvrave the Liberator

Short Synopsis: Our lead character may pilot a super giant robot.
This really had Ichiro Okouchi written all over it. The creator of Code Geass. This episode had lots and lots of shock value. That is not necessarily bad, but it does have me worried that this show somehow tries to convince us that the safest place to store an all-powerful robot, capable of annihilating everything on its path and that takes the soul of its pilots, was a freaking SCHOOL. I mean, the only thing that the plot had going for it so far is that it’s bigger on the shock factor. Otherwise it’s just another “been there, done that”-story about this random kid who just “happens” to find a big mecha. It’s a good thing that the animation is actually very good, the music is actually pretty amazing and the rest of the characters are… interesting enough. But really: if you want to create a giant trainwreck: think BIG. Think original. Don’t give me that school crap.
ED: Cathchy, but visually it’s nothing special.
Potential: 65%

Aiura

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are a bunch of random high school girls.
So… yeah. For those of you who didn’t know yet… allow me to share something. The series this season with the best line-up of staff members isn’t Shingeki no Kyojin. It is not Aku no hana. Nor it is Gargantia, Red Data Girl, Hataraku Maou or Crime Edge. Nope. It’s this one. Allow me to introduce to you the next work of Ryousuke Nakamura, the best director to emerge out of the past ten years. After doing Mouryou no Hako, Hashire Melos and Nerawareta Gakuen together with Mieko Hosoi… their next work is a 4-minute series involving a bunch of random schoolgirls. I really hope, along with Mappa’s recent Teekyu, that this is just a side-project in which they want to do something silly for a chance. And yeah, this pretty much was the best of its genre. No cliches, no stereotypes. It just does what it sets out to do: animate the daily life of a high school girls. The jokes are not forced and it also doesn’t try to be funny if it doesn’t have to (unlike Yuyushiki, for example), not to mention that it builds up its jokes, which is always a plus. The animation actually focuses on subtle movements, rather than looking cool or impressive. I mean, it’s clear that this was made by people who know how to bring characters alive. I would have just hoped that they would do something more… ambitious. These are people that can bring stories to life that nobody else can.
OP: Crab! Crab! Crab! Crab! Addictive song and something different~!
ED: An actually relaxing song, instead of overly J-Poppy.
Potential: 75%

Yuyushiki

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are a bunch of random high school girls.
A bunch of high school girls at a high school club doing random things. I am NOT a fan of this genre, yet I do believe that everything has its exceptions. Yuyushiki was actually rather close to being that exception, with a bit more thought into its script and storytelling. Rather than just being random, this episode outlined the first two days at school: there was progression. The animation was good for such a series, it was sometimes relaxing, and it did sometimes get a chuckle out of me. That’s at least the direction I’m looking for. Unfortunately, what really killed this one for me is that most of the jokes just fell flat. I don’t know about you, but I personally hate sitting through bad jokes. For me, they’re worse than simple boredom, especially when there is so many of them. The blue-haired girl in particular just kept trying to force her stupidity down our throat with ditzy comment after ditzy comment, and the pink-haired girl really was hit or miss.
OP: Not the most generic opening this season, but nothing special either; at least it gives a good overview of what the series is about.
ED: A walking ED where the gimmick wears off fast.
Potential: 40%

Danchi Tomou

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a random kid.
I’ve stopped covering the kiddie series with these first impressions. One because of time restrictions, and two, because I can only say the same thing so many times (they all are really too much the same). The exception to this of course is the small collection of actually good ones, Danchi Tomou being one of them. Yeah, it is entirely done in cell shaded CG, that doesn’t earn it any points or something, but when you look beyond that you actually have quite an endearing slice of life series. What sets this one apart is its acting: Tomou is really bratty, but it’s one in a way that it’s enjoyable. His antics are varied, funny and not totally random. He really feels like a little kid. The rest of the cast has the same: They feel like actual characters, rather than cliches or stereotypes. The thing remains though, that I don’t really see a red thread keeping this together. The creators need to find something to make me continue watching, to keep me coming back. The fact that Tomou’s father is away is a good start, but not quite there yet.
OP: Awesome. You can see that this is from the same director as Space Brothers. Why do I feel the need to watch this over and over again?
ED: A walking ED. With a small twist.
Potential: 80%

Sparrow’s Hotel

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a hot hotel ninja clerk.
In a follow-up to Aku no Hana: this series has what I personally would call really ugly art. I mean, holy crap those proportions! Those eyes! Who the hell designed that?! This is not a flash series, but it definitely comes close to that. As for the actual content… it’s basically a show with “hot girl jokes”. The entire series revoles around this hotel clerk who apparently is really gute and strong and ditzy and whatnot. The creators tried to stuff as much cliches as possible into just her, with the rest of the cast acting as a straight man (or woman). The big problem is that the acting is utterly terrible. What should have looked cute just looks incredibly forced and awkward. This is worse than even Date A Live. At least that show had a purpose!
OP: Just as bad as this series.
Potential: 0%

Arata Kangatari

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wields a magical sword.
Arata Kangatari, for those of you who don’t know, is the product of the same author as Fushigi Yuugi. Fushigi Yuugi is a series that I gave about three episodes, before abandoning it, because the main female character was a total moron. After watching this episode, I am glad to see that there was no such moron here. There is a bit of stupidity and there is one particular female character who needs to get a clue, but it’s all within acceptable bounds. And it created actually a pretty impressive story around that, with two stories running at the same time: one at present day, and one in a past fantasy world. Please let this be a series with bishies that actually remains good. They’ve gotten rather a rather bad reputation lately.
ED: My dear vocalist: you’re trying waaaay too hard.
Potential: 80%

Mushibugyo

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights evil bug monsters.
Mushibugyo is a typical shounen. We’ve got a young kid with strong powers who wants to be stronger and protect a girl with big boobs who gets kidnapped immediately in the first episode. There are over the top powers and big monsters who need to be defeated by swords. But does it have anything to keep me interested? Not really. It’s got a nice style, the soundtrack is good, but beyond that it just does not seem to have a lot of substance. This series seems to view its battles as its main use of entertainment… and they aren’t really that good. The characters don’t really try to move away from their cliches. The only character who even remotely impressed me only appeared in a flashback, and even that was just over the top as a copy-paste excuse for the male lead to be involved with the story. It’s good innocent fun, but I’m looking for something more than just that.
OP: Quite stylish, good song at the very least.
ED: Ballad that doesn’t really catch my interest
Potential: 40%

Gargantua on the Vendurous Planet

Short Synopsis: Our lead character ends up on a strange planet with a cute girl.
The one thing I remember from the trailer of this series, is that it looked a bit dull. Now that the actual episode has aired through, I have to say that the inclusion of dialogue made up for a lot here. If you don’t pay attention it can easily sound like techno-babble, but it really was interesting. The voice acting also delivers these lines well, and I have to say that I quite like the male lead and his AI companion. They have a good chemistry together. This episode also contained quite a bit of a mood switch in its second half, and that too worked quite well. On one hand there are the technological advances of the main character, and on the other there are the “simple” technologies of the people on the planet he ends up on. It’s got a lot of potential here. My one question is: why the girl? Why is she important? Why does she have this cute mascot? Her character… she just feels so totally unlike what Urobuchi Gen would write…
ED: Generic anime song #324.
Potential: 85%

Shingeki no Kyojin

Short Synopsis: Our lead character needs to kill giants.
In one of the rare cases, I’ve actually read the manga here. Or at least the first 10 chapters. If there is any series that has the chance to become the epic of the year, it’s this one. It’s just that good, not to mention that it has some of the perfect staff behind it. Unlike with Guilty Crown, you can see Tetsuro Araki’s influence as the main director: this guy knows how to create an incredibly tight atmosphere with the means that he has. The big question for me for this first episode would be: did they get the giants right? Did they get these beings rights that are nearly impossible to animate? They actually did. They used quite a bit of CG, but the giants look just amazing. Beyond that, they put in quite a few small details here and there to brighten up the mood, the whole setting has gotten a lovely coloured rendition, making everything feel authentic and believable (this is something that I did not experience while reading the manga), and all of that had the result that this episode was a really tense ride. Next up is creating that feeling of addiction that the manga had. If it can get that right in the next few episodes, it’ll be entirely awesome.
OP: An actually epic song for such an epic series. Great art as well.
Potential: 100%

Zettai Bouei Leviathan

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is fantasy pest control.
Leviathan is one of the worst types of first episodes to write about… because it’s incredibly bland. It’s just a bunch of cute girls with a bit of fanservice here and there. The characters are all boring, the setting is boring, the whole premise is boring, the art is boring. There’s nothing really to write about. Oh wait. One of the girls has this this axe that is waaaay to big for her. But that’s just listing the symptoms, not the actual disease: Leviathan lacks creativity. I could have dug a series like that goes back to classic fantasy and all. But then spice things up! Do something interesting with it! Stand out! After such a boring first episode I don’t really feel like continuing to watch. And I know that there might be a great story at the end and all. But I can say that about many other series with bland first episodes. I saw no hints here whatsoever that that would be the case here. Also, Gonzo. The action in this episode was utter crap. What happened?
OP: Dull song, uninspired visuals
ED: A simple song. But again: dull. Uninspired.
Potential: 20%

Yondemasuyo, Azazel-san Z

Short Synopsis: Our lead character can summon demons
For the new series of Azazel-san, it really did help that its first episode focused on my favorite character of the series: Moloch. This guy is utterly hilarious, and this lead to a really funny first episode here. The thing with him is, that the creators have so many great ideas about him. And they used a ton of them in this first episode, turning him into this cute plushy pulling a really obvious ret-con of a certain event of the first season. This series also loves its over the top violence, and that too had some really nice moments. Where in Moromi-san, people were just beat up all the time, Azazel-san does this with care and timing. And creativity. And a mind that is completely lost in the gutter.
OP: One of the very few openings that are actually funny
ED: Quite quirky.
Potential: 85%

Namiuchigawa no Moromi-san

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fishes up a mermaid.
This year, Azazel-san is also airing alongside another 10-minute episode series. For the first season it was Hen Zemi. For the second, it is Moromi-san. For the first season it aired alongside a show that explored the borders of taste and that made it a contest to see how disgusting it could be. For the second season it aired next to…. a hyperactive mermaid. Here is the thing with this first episode: it tries way too hard to be funny, while it actually isn’t. Moromi-san just keeps yelling and yelling and yelling. She just keeps doing violent things, over and over. It stopped being funny to me after… one minute I think?
OP: Energetic at least.
Potential: 20%

Aku no Hana

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is an average high school boy.
There is one thing that I picked up from the reactions of Aku no Hana before I watched this: the character-designs were supposed to be really bad. So I was expecting them to be like full of bishoujo with brightly coloured hair, incredibly plain looking and where all characters looked like the creators just kept using the same character model but with only swapped-out hair and eyes. Not this! This is amazing! A show that has its own style, and every character looks significantly different. And also look at the animation: instead of relying way too much on key animation (like, one pose that moves slightly, then cutting to another pose that moves slightly), the characters here are nearly constantly moving in interesting and believable ways. The voice acting also is different: much more realistic than usual. This really is one of those shows that went the extra mile. One that thought: “what can we all add to make this stand out, and make it even better?” I also love the simple soundtrack: perfect for creating an atmosphere. The backgrounds are also really detailed and also very true to life. This first episode mostly spent its time showing the everyday life of the main character. Which, actually is pretty fine for character-building. And when it switched over to the main character daydreaming in his room for a short while, it really made an impact.
OP: Love the guitar solo
ED: Whoa! Hauting! Unique! Awesome!
Potential: 95%

Karneval

Short Synopsis: Our lead character Has special powers.
Karneval surprised me. I mean, it is an action show with a lot of bishies, but the animation can be pretty good and the atmosphere is pretty impressive as well. This episode already started off with a lot of different characters, and stories, and it shows quite the ambition if it wants to tie all of them together. Most of the characters are also nice to watch. It just misses a bit of depth in the character-department: none of them are really that interesting or hold potential beyond a few hints here and there. And there are a few characters who just try to be too annoying. Most notably the whimpy kid main character… On the other hand I did like the use of trains in this first episode. I hope that they continue to have creative settings like that in the future.
OP:
ED: Really bad J-pop that totally does not fit the mood!
Potential: 75%

Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru

Short Synopsis: Our lead character joints a club with a bunch of cute girls.
Yahari Blahblah is another one of those series with a dead horse premise: some random guy who joins a club with some cute girls.The originality! Thankfully though, this was one of the better first episodes with that premise that I’ve watched. The characters are eloquent, and they actually say something relevant, rather than pull a Shaft and continue to yap about nothing at all. This is pretty much the first episode of Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, done right. There is tension, but it’s not so ridiculously stupid and one-sided as there and the three characters actually all give as well as recieve. My big problem here is what this show is going to do with the rest of its episodes. I see hardly any potential there beyond a bunch of random episodes.
OP: Nice visual effects, but a rather dull song and the visuals also aren’t that special.
ED: A dull ballad.
Potential: 70%

Photo Kano

Short Synopsis: Our lead character takes pictures of young schoolgirls.
Photo Kano is Madhouse’s latest sell-out. They may have their great series, but once in a while they also do shows like this: a generic quasi-harem about photographing girls. I remember how it had one of the worst trailers of the season, but thankfully the actual series is not as bad and shallow at what it suggested. It’s merely a really boring dating sim. The lead guy has a hobby, and beyond that is a cast of stereotypes, both in terms of girls that fill various fanservice stereotypes, and the cast of male pervert side characters. Thankfully, there were the odd bunch of characters who didn’t try to be a cliche, but there weren’t many of them. It’s not the most blatant show of the season because some characters actually did try to act. But there is a huge difference between “acting” and “actually being interesting”.
OP: FANSERVICE!
ED: What? No fanservice? Instead: SYMBOLISM WITH FLOWERS!
Potential: 30%

Hataraku Maou-Sama

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is an evil demon lord!
This was, by far, the biggest surprise I had in a long, long while when doing these first impressions. I didn’t expect anything from this at all. Just a random comedy with dull characters that may have had a few good jokes in it. There had been so many similar shows before, the entire premise of this show just felt redundant. What sets Hataraku Maou-sama apart though, is that the creators put in far more attention and effort than what you would expect. The animation from White Fox was actually quite gorgeous and expressive, but what impressed me the most were the characters. These guys are genuinely funny, and they have a ton of detail to them that set themselves apart. For example they start out speaking their own made-up language. The creators then commence to show all sorts of cultural differences that all in all are actually pretty cleverly done. This really is one of those genres that takes a well known and used genre, and pushes its boundaries. Finally!
ED: Simple, but actually quite catchy.
Potential: 90%

Devil Survivor 2 The Animation

Short Synopsis: Our lead character can summon beasts to fight for him.
I still haven’t forgotten the pain that was Persona 4, so perhaps because of that lingering on I didn’t enjoy this episode as much as I could have, but still: this was not as bad. The pacing was actually decent, and it didn’t try to rush through its dialogues. The fight scenes on their own are pretty cool looking, and it’s also good that this series cares for its continuity: whenever a bomb explodes in the whole city, it actually leaves its imprint: people die, take ages to get home and the whole city just comes to a stand-still. That, unfortunately are about the only positive things I can say about this episode. Bridge’s animation was decent, though nothing special for a first episode. It was decent, but did not stand out. One thing that really irked me though, was the main cast of characters, and how they acted through this episode. The two male leads don’t seem to be scared or surprised of anything, and they instantly notice the most insane details, like how an evil monster works, and one of them just manages to hijack a truck from out of nowhere. The main female is the complete opposite: scared, she doesn’t really do anything, and still she can summon really big monsters without even thinking of it. Hello people, balance! It’s not like they are interesting characters anyway!
OP: The lighting effects and poses are good, but the song here is rather boring.
ED: Dark J-rock, but not bad.
Potential: 70%

Majestic Prince

Short Synopsis: Our lead character pilots a big powerful mecha!
Let me tell you what Majestic Prince defines as “characterization”: every character has one quirk, and this quirk has to be repeated over and over. If you don’t to that, you simply try to look cool. Beyond that, this episode just did not make any sense. Here we have a bunch of commanders who are stupid enough to send out the worst possible pilots (not to mention a bunch of teenagers) to waste five very expensive mechas, despite that there are plenty of better alternatives. Yeah, it’s the usual bad stuff. The weird thing about this episode is that I’m not sure whether or not this series is in on the joke. At the end of the episode everyone was like “… did that just really happen?!”, like they too couldn’t believe their eyes there, with their distorted faces that are all over this episode.
Potential: 65%

Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge

Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets a cursed girl
One of the things that I’m looking for with these first impressions is good execution. A series that really puts in effort to show its story and brings its scenes in a compelling way, instead of always taking the lazy routes. Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge, the only series to be named after a pair of scissors, has that. No, seriously, this show is weird (it’s got this strange hair fetish…), but damn: the animation was really good at times. When characters are touching each other’s hair, the movement is really well detailed, and the artistic direction of the rest of the episode also was really, really good, despite the generic character-designs. What’s most important though, is that this first episode already had a big emotional response: it introduced its characters and got an entire story with introduction, beginning and end out of them, and it was really genuine somehow. I knew that this series would have strange themes, but it’s a surprise that the creators handled it so well here. Let’s hope that they can do this as well for the rest of the series!
Potential: 90%

Uta no Prince Sama – Maji Love 2000%

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is loved by half a dozen bishies.
The cheese! Oh dear lord, the cheese! This episode was so incredibly girly, and that is really weird when the total amount of girls in the cast of this series adds up to 2. I mean, I get that this is a romance show and all, but all of the bishies were basically like “Ooh, Female Lead is amazing!”, “I’m so glad that we get to live together!”, “I love that she will compose songs for us to sing!” – guys! Know some balance for god’s sake. This was just creepy on so many levels to see them swoon over her with such persistence. Beyond that though, the biggest flaw of this series is that it thinks that it can flesh out its cast through their designs, and not their actions. What I mean by that is a lot of detail has been spent on how the characters all look, and what their rooms look like; you know, crap that you might see in a teenaged magazine. But all of them act like complete stereotypes with just one or two traits, nothing more. I actually think that this is a pretty bad message to its audience. “Here you go girls, a ton of bishies you can choose from! They all look gorgeous and they have the personality of a cardboard box! Enjoy!” But yeah, this is a problem that more harem shows seem to have…
OP: Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!
ED: Cheese! Tough it does have pretty pictures
Potential: 30%

Danbooru Senki Wars

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to pilot a big mecha.
I’m not going to review every single series this season (Train Heroes and Line Town were so bad that I couldn’t even finish them), but I might as well talk briefly about Danbooru Senki’s sequel. To be honest, I expected it to be total crap, but it did have flashes of potential, in its huge rendition of the real world that is meant to simulate wars. Somewhere beneath that some depth is hidden. The question however, is whether it will actually use this. This remains a Level 5 series, and the annoyances of their series also shine through here: the male lead is incredibly generic, it keeps shoehorning kids into places they don’t belong, and the action is just flat-out boring. It all just looks so generic, none of the characters made any impression beyond dull stereotypes and the way in which this is just a glorified toy commercial also doesn’t really help (the entire world is dedicated to these robot games? Please). I don’t see this worth checking out the tiny bit of potential that it has.
ED: Apparently the animation team wasn’t done yet…
Potential: 10%

DD Hokuto no Ken

Short Synopsis: Our lead character lives in a world where there are too many delinquents.
I have two main qualms about the current season, at first sight. First of all, it looks relatively bland for a Spring Season on average. The second is that two of the biggest talents in terms of direction are doing silly comedy shows. DD Hokuto no Ken is the first, which shows Akitaro Daichi, one of the most consistent comedy directors out there, doing a Hokuto no Ken parody. The result is undoubtedly really weird, and you can again see his influence. This episode had some good jokes in it, but I also think that it’s nowhere near his best work. For the first time in a series directed by him, the jokes are hit and miss: some of them just try way too hard to be funny. But we’ll see. There is some potential for a good parody of that series especially when it’s done so well. Obviously you need to know some background on the series to fully enjoy it, but with that, I think that knowing the general premise of the series will suffice.
OP: Quite catchy.
ED: Just…. what?
Potential: 70%

Date A Live

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has to date girls in orer to save the world (no, really)
This thing… was actually much worse than expected. AIC, why? WHY? What made you go for such an incredibly stupid premise? Who… in their right mind… made the leader of the sole organization that is able to save the world… the male lead’s sister? Yeah, this show has incest written all over it (screw it: if the opening scene shows the sister showing her panties, it’s going to get to incest at some point). None of the characters are any good, the show is full of jokes that are 10 years old, and the rest of the humour also is just terrible. No potential whatsoever here.
Potential: 0%

Red Data Girl

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a shrine maiden with special powers.
Red Data girl is… weird. I mean that in a good way, but I’m also rather confused because there are some parts that it doesn’t bother to introduce. Because of that you’re thrown a bit into this episode without knowing much about what’s going on or anything. I do have to say however, that if it can explain all of this well, then we can have ourselves quite an interesting series here. It has ingredients you see everywhere, but also ingredients that you don’t see anywhere. The lead male and lead female hate each other, but this does create a strange chemistry, and especially the lead female struggling with her own shyness was quite well done: she’s got special powers and everyone takes care of her, yet she is completely weak at the same time, causing a lot of trouble for others. This still needs to be fleshed out a lot, but the series has eleven episodes left to do this. I’m positive for now.
OP: A dull song, but nice symbolism for the rest of the story.
ED: Great vocalist. The visuals aren’t really that interesting though.
Potential: 80%