Category: Series which were Dropped

Shoukoku no Altair – 01 [The Golden Eagle General]

by SuperWooper, posted in Series which were Dropped, Shoukoku no Altair

As a fan of both historical fantasy and MAPPA, the studio behind this series, I had high hopes for Shoukoku no Altair coming into this premiere. Its Middle Eastern setting and young, eager protagonist make it a dead ringer for Arslan Senki, the first season of which I enjoyed. Arslan was a bit dry, and its battle scenes were riddled with CG elements, but it also had the disadvantage of being produced by Liden Films. My thinking was that with a more trustworthy animation house behind it, Altair had a shot at being the complete package.

The going is still early, but after one episode, my expectations have been appropriately tempered. Altair is a distinctly average show from a visual perspective, with most of its flair coming from the ornate Turkish outfits and architecture (Turkiyean, to use the show’s vocab), rather than its composition or sense of movement. I haven’t done much more than skim through the first chapter of the manga for this one, but it would surprise me if the art were this standard in its original form. Seeing how much material was crammed into these 22 minutes, though, makes me think that the episode director had a lot more on his mind than making the show look pretty.

Despite only introducing a handful of characters in its first outing (with plenty more to come if the OP is any indication), Altair feels jam-packed with content. I’ve seen it written that the show will likely burn through its first couple arcs to get to the good stuff, and if that’s the case, we ought to be rewarded down the line. For now, though, we’re relying on flashbacks, rooftop statements of purpose, and narrated exposition to learn about the world of Rumeliana. Turkiye is a small fish in a much larger pond, and until all the major players have been introduced, I don’t expect this style of delivery to change.

The most significant player in this story is Tugril Mahmut Pasha, “Pasha” being a title for Turkiyean generals. As the youngest person ever to join that distinguished assembly, he’s clearly being set up as a prodigy. His mother is dead, and he’s so inexperienced with women that he opts to sleep on the roof when he finds one in his bed, so he’s ticking all the normal boxes as far as anime protagonists go. Mahmut discovers a plot by the neighboring Balt-Rhein Empire to frame Turkiye for the assassination of their Prime Minister, who is given the name “Franz” in one of the silliest World War I references ever. Our hero conveniently overhears the name of the conspirator from a band of assassins, sets his army of eagles on them, reveals the identity of the traitor to the Emperor of the opposing nation, and saves the day. If that sounds like a lot of material for a first episode, that’s because it is, and that’s without the handful of characters and plot points I’ve neglected to mention. Still, Altair makes itself easy to follow, even as it moves rapidly through its material.

The person that interests me the most is Zaganos Pasha, a young general who wants war with the Empire despite their superior numbers, and with whom Mahmut immediately clashes. There’s a possibility that he’s feeding information to Louis, the Imperial conspirator, to achieve his goal, but his level-headed demeanor makes it hard to predict whether that’s truly the case. The Emperor of Balt-Rhein is also a bit of a question mark – his refusal to listen to all of Mahmut’s testimony indicates prior knowledge of Louis’ plot, but there’s no confirmation that he orchestrated the whole thing. Hopefully these characters, along with those who have yet to be introduced, will lend a bit of spice to a show that could really use it.

WWW.Working!! – Episode 3

by K-Off, posted in Currently Watching:, WWW.Working!!

A-1 Pictures is a studio that created a lot of my favorite comedies, which have always been hit or misses. Yet they seem to have fallen off the deep-end on comedies recently, as they haven’t put out anything worthwhile (excluding sequels) since Silver Spoon in 2013. Maybe Zveda if I’m feeling generous…Either way, this one doesn’t seem to break that trend strong enough. What I said about episode 2 still stands, and on top of that, I can summarize my problem with episode three in two words: So. Flat.

Now, I love flat humor as evident in my review of Gugure Kokkuri-San awhile back, but there’s such thing as too much of a good thing. It only works for me when it’s contrasted with high energy to sort of highlight its silliness, but here, a majority of the cast are too dull, soft spoken, and deadpan.

That won’t be a problem for long if the characters don’t stay so one dimensional, so I’ll have to see how the show progresses, but it isn’t looking very good. The issue right now really is the cast itself. There are too many characters that are the quiet, soft-spoken “deadpan” type for there to be much variety in the delivery of the jokes. Delivery is really important for me. But Muranushi, Kondou, Kamakura, Shindou, and the MC don’t look like they’re going to stop their flat acting anytime soon. This episode doesn’t get much more than a small chuckle out of me, with Miyakoshi still being the only character that isn’t completely dull.

I really do want to find bigger things to praise this episode for, but I’d be grasping at straws. The way we’re already being loaded with Shindou’s uninteresting background story (continuing since the last episode) confuses the tone, and like I mentioned previously, the pacing is still an issue. I feel like this show already revealed everything it had to offer way too quickly, and even then what I saw wasn’t very interesting. 

However as I stated earlier, I have enough faith in Karino and A-1 to hope for the best. A weak start doesn’t mean anything, and if nothing else, the show has charm. The point is, this show has problems that can easily go away once it can vary up its comedic voice and create dynamic characters. Also, please let character interactions be more than just two or three talking amongst each other. That gets old really quickly, I’d love to feel like all the characters could actually exist next to each other.

First Impressions: Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2

by HelghastKillzone, posted in Currently Watching:, Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans 2

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It been awhile since I wrote anything for this site as I have been quite busy over the last few months and the summer season of anime didn’t interested me all that much. Having previously covered the first season of Iron-Blooded Orphans (on another site), I’m compelled to cover the second half in its entirety. Having experienced the mediocre quality of the Gundam franchise of Seed Destiny, 00 and AGE of the past decade, Iron-Blooded Orphans is the best alternate universe that has been put out in a very long time. I just love the brutal scrappy nature of mecha combat, music and its harden cast of characters that doesn’t fall into the trap of being whiny teenagers with flaky morals. Season two continues to follow the precedent set by the first season and add more varieties of mobile suits, new antagonists and a shakeup of the players within the Iron-Blooded Orphans universe.

Continue reading “First Impressions: Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans Season 2” →

WWW.Working!! – Episode 2

by K-Off, posted in Currently Watching:, WWW.Working!!

So…I’ve gone ahead and rewatched this episode twice because I wanted to be sure, but the pacing is definitely moving at breakneck speed compared to Wagnaria. This episode so far has a bunch of the qualities that I rather dislike. I mean, the characters break off into twos or threes and do their own thing without interacting with nearly anyone else, and by that I mean the kitchen staff, servers, and the MC do their own thing without building up everyone as a whole. That’s why the pacing must feel so fast, because the episode keeps jumping between a handful of people each doing their own thing.

This will be the last time I make the comparison to Wagnaria, but it really is a change. Episode 2 of Wagnaria made it the most entertaining show of its season because it created a cohesive cast by its second episode, creating scenarios where all of the staff could interact with each other. Contrary to this episode, it was only later into its season when it let the characters split off and do their own thing. It’s worthwhile to be a little cautious with any spin-off and it looks like I can’t let my guard down yet. Especially after seeing that the characterization isn’t anything to write about, and the variety of humor isn’t all exactly there yet either.

I suppose it’s easier to find what doesn’t work comedically than to do otherwise. So to its credit, Miyakoshi is the best part of this episode. I especially like her interaction with Daisuke and her acting is easily the most enthusiastic out of all the cast, who’re rather mostly…average. She brought the most energy into the episode, and her showing up at Higashida’s house worked really well.

In any case, what makes the show from being yet another average slice of life is that it works off character quirks to spice up every episode, most of the side characters still play off amusing traits if they aren’t very developed yet. So in the end, I personally prefer the tighter approach to comedy (with closely-knit character interactions), it creates more personality. It also makes them more relatable.

The music is alright, the opening is good but the ending song is pretty generic, I loved the soundtrack toWagnaria and Servant x Service so it’s somewhat of a letdown to hear some standard fare background music in this episode. I’d look forward to seeing the show crank up the energy more, so far Miyakoshi is the only one with any kind of real enthusiasm in her character.

Shingeki no Bahamut:Genesis- 05

by K-Off, posted in Shingeki no Bahamut

Ah, the story progression that I was looking for. I finally find myself having a reason to get attached to Leone and Kaisar, because this episode devotes an entire episode to their rivalry and is just all around an improvement from last episode.

I’ve talked about how the slow pacing hurts this show, and this is one instance where taking a break from the monotony of side activities does a lot to build the story. In this episode, we follow Leone and Rita (possibly my favorite character so far) as they try to get Kaisar and Amira back, who were captured by demons in the last episode. The old rivalry between Leone and Kaisar finally come to a head, and it’s been delivered in such a satisfying manner here- the rising action was not contrived in any way and it was packed with a lot of tension. Regardless, there remains much to be worried about when talking about where this anime will end up-take Amira’s exponential “moe-ification” and the sluggish pacing, which appeared plenty of times in the last few episodes. Those will, without a doubt, stay relevant as the show moves forward.

In addition, Jeanne D’Arc and the Knights had at most 3 minutes of screen time ever since the series began, so I do think that it’s a mistake for Sato to put them on the sidelines for so long. Jeanne D’Arc is probably the only well-known historical figure in the anime, and she’s yet another character being cast off as a minor supporting character when she has so much potential.

Your Lie in April – 04 & 05

by LightningBolt, posted in Currently Watching:, Your Lie in April

Episodes 4 and 5 of Your Lie in April were crucial ones in terms of how the series would develop. Episode 4 was a very important episode in the series as we see Kousei reintroduce himself to the music world after his mother’s death left him unable to play the piano. How the writers would handle this situation was extremely important. I was personally worried that Kousei’s and Kaori’s performance would go too smoothly, almost belittling Kousei’s trauma. Instead, the writers took a more agreeable path than that in which encouraging signs for Kousei’s progress were mixed with frustration and familiar problems that showed that he is definitely not out of the woods yet.

After the performance, we’re left with Kaori’s sudden collapse. I was immediately worried that this was going to be an extremely cheap use of melodrama to inject some drama into the show that would ultimately be completely negligible to the series as a whole, but we learn in episode 5 that this has been a recurring issue for Kaori and will almost definitely be a very important part of Your Lie in April going forward. The rest of episode 5 showed a stronger focus on the relationships within the show with some monologues from Tsubaki and Kousei as they ponder their feelings. Episode 5 ends with Kaori pushing Kousei to enter a piano competition, which will be another important step in Kousei’s progress overcoming his trauma.

The good from these two episodes is that the pacing and production values have remained very strong. Good pacing is always nice since it feels rather rare in the medium, and especially rare in the drama/romance genres. The show also managed to beat out my worst expectations that I detailed a little bit in the above paragraphs, relating to how Kousei’s accompaniment of Kaori would go and Kaori’s collapse. As for the bad… I really wasn’t a fan of the writers hanging the botched performance over Kousei’s head. I can understand Kousei being hard on himself, even if he was pushed into the performance. I think it would be a natural reaction. I was less understanding of Kaori bringing it up at the end of episode 5. At the end of the day, I think it was merely to get him to do the piano competition, continuing to try to help him overcome his issues, but I’m still iffy on hanging that over his head to get him to do it. This is also a good time to mention the sappy lines I forgot to mention last time. They’re back in full force, particularly during the monologues. The biggest issue with these lines is that they really just suck me out of the show. Nobody talks like that.

Overall I’d say the quality has remained fairly consistent through these five episodes. Kousei’s upcoming piano competition should be the next major event and it’ll be interesting to see how the writers choose to move along the plot from where we are now. Also, of course, it’ll be interesting to see how Kaori’s health develops going forward.

Gugure! Kokkuri-San- 05

by K-Off, posted in Gugure! Kokkuri-San

This. This is what I was asking for, and it delivered. This episode finally starts to create a distinct voice for itself by not adding to the hodgepodge of comedic styles this show already had, opting for a slow, drawn-out humor rather than the experimentation this show seemed to be doing with these past four episodes. It’s finally good to see this show starting to show some consistency, at least in the style of comedy it’s trying to go for.

Besides that, the part about the bully in Kohina’s school was mind-numbingly dull. I don’t see the jokes about the flower working for a Westerner with no prior knowledge of the context behind Japanese flowers, so the first half of this episode was very painful to sit through. However, I wouldn’t fault this on the show by any means, and I’m sure I would have appreciated it far better than I did had I known.

Let me talk about gender-bending real quick. Often, it’s over-used as fan service of the lowest degree and is one of the worst things a writer can do without giving the proper context. In addition, the explanations given for such gender-swaps are usually so contrived and idiotic that I can’t help but wonder who these shows were supposed to pander to. Even if one has a gender-bend fetish, wouldn’t they want their material being handled with all proper respect? Just like fan service, even gender-bending stories are proper in the right context- and in this spectrum, Gugugure! Kokkuri-San handles gender-bending excellently. Not only is the reason for sex-changes perfect for this story (they’re all spirits/gods, so they’re genderless), it’s handled in such a way that the fan service is covert/almost entirely nonexistent. Chiefly, Inugami. He may only be a side character, but he remains one of the most interesting character next to Shigaraki thanks to this ability. The character interactions change dynamically with Shigaraki when Inugami turns into a female this episode, and this was easily the second highlight of this episode, which was pretty damn funny.

I really started to enjoy this episode after the first half of the episode, as Kokkuri-San and Inugami enroll in Kohina’s school under cover, allowing for more character development for Kohina whilst getting some genuinely good laughs in.The school setting this episode seems to introduce dynamicism  to the plot by expanding the scope of the character interactions- now, not only do we get to see Kohina interact with the spirits, we also get to see how Kohina, the spirits, and the classmates all mingle simultaneously.

If this show keeps going at this pace, it can finally polish itself to become a really great series, possibly better than Barakamon.

Psycho Pass 2 – 03 – 04

by ninjarealist, posted in Currently Watching:, Psycho Pass 2

Episodes 3 and 4 of Pyscho Pass are difficult to talk about. This show has been extremely consistent so far. The staff have handled this sequel with an understated confidence that’s hard to dislike. I still don’t find the show to be as atmospheric as the original, and I still like the dialogue less, but the narrative continues to be engaging. I think where the narrative has really succeeded is in avoiding extraneous clutter that would detract from the major themes of the show.

However, this is both a strength and a weakness. While Psycho Pass 2 doesn’t waste time, the direct style of writing can be a bit predictable at times. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who saw the drinking scene between Aoyanagi and Ginoza as a clear death flag. And one episode later, sure enough, Aoyanagi gets turned into red pudding . This show is clearly trying to shock the viewer and I think it would do a better job at this if the plot was a little more surprising. But that’s a minor quip.

I think a bigger quip would be that if they were trying to shock the viewer with the violence in episode 4, they didn’t do a great job. The hand-to-hand combat shown in the first part of the episode was quite disturbing, and really succeeded at unnerving me. But this effect was sort of ruined with the gratuitous dominator shootout at the end, which honestly felt kind of cartoony to me.

And then there’s Mika Shimotsuki. As much as I hate to admit it, she’s really become the wild card in this series. Her ethically questionable decision-making raises some interesting questions, questions that don’t have easy answers. Chiefly, was her inaction simply malicious or does it speak to more undestandable flaws in her in character? And is her rage against Akane simply the result of a bad attitude or is her anger rooted in the trauma that was inflicted upon her in season 1? Is Mika just a testament to the failure of SYBIL to produce a healthy society? These are tough questions and I’m excited to see how they get resolved.

Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis- 04

by K-Off, posted in Shingeki no Bahamut

By now, I have a general idea of where this story is going. Our characters finally face the main villains of the story and starting next episode, I reckon that we’ll get some real story progression because frankly, the past few episodes did almost nothing to get me to care much for the characters, no matter how charming they may have been.

The problem with the show thus far, is that it uses character tropes borrowed from various Westerns to the detriment of interest on the viewer’s part. This is where the slow pacing is actually hurting character development, an ironic condition owing to the fact that we’ve come to expect slow-paced anime (like Space Brothers) to have too much emphasis on its characters, which usually bores everyone. Even with the slow pacing, Kenichi Sato decides to place fast-action in every episode, and while those scenes are very fun to watch, there is such thing as too much of a good thing. By placing action in a story that is barely progressing, you force the viewers to miss the subtle character expositions you want them to pick up. Sato is clearly much more concerned with the action over exposition, and  I’m concerned where this anime will end up . Take more time to focus on Favaro and Leone’s pasts longer than the forced-in exposition we got in this episode, because the “twist” we get in this episode was way too rushed.

I also worry that Amira might permanently devolve into a vessel for moe, because her character literally did nothing this episode besides acting “cute” and fighting. I much preferred the Amira we got in the first episode, because although that one was very generic and without nuance, she at least had intrigue built into her personality. She’s a badass demon. If you’re going to show a human side to her true form, make the audience become invested in her character with some character development rather than an abrupt shift in personality. Other than that, the only character I find interesting so far is the necromancer, because she’s pleasantly gruesome. If there are to be any highlights in this episode, they are the scenes that involve her. The voice actor does a fantastic job portraying her personality, and I look forward to seeing more of her character.

Ultimately, this episode was not a bad episode so much as it was a red flag.

Gugure! Kokkuri-San- 04

by K-Off, posted in Gugure! Kokkuri-San

By now, I have a general idea of how the writers are going to go forward with this show. This show continues to jump the gun without setting up a clear voice for itself while pulling off some genuinely fun comedy, creating this weird combination that is somewhat off-putting yet fairly enticing.

However, this episode has its share of very dull/odd moments, which just serves to prove my point about this show’s lack of consistency in both humor and voice. When Kokkuri-san follows Kohina to school, we’re introduced (no spoilers) to a particular character we would never expect to see in a story based around Japanese folklore- this was something one would expect out of Nichijou. While the show is self-aware and points that out itself, it doesn’t change the fact that up to this point, it did not do a single thing to lead us to believe that this show was anything like a surreal comedy. While the previous episodes certainly did contain a lot of absurd humor, it was within the confines of its limited comedic spectra and therefore had zero buildup to what we got. If they’d only played with surrealist humor from the beginning, I’m sure that I could have fully appreciated parts of this episode a lot better.

The inconsistencies aside, that scene and the other parts of the episode were pretty damn funny for what they were. They introduce us to two brand new characters this episode, and Shigaraki in particular is a welcome addition to the mix. He brings a much more believable serious tone to the show, and this episode puts much effort into his character development by putting a spin on his personality that doesn’t shy away from adding a touch of dark humor through his “philanthropist” work. I really appreciate how the writers caught me by surprise just when I began rolling my eyes- because for a moment, the show looked like it was approaching the typical “mischievous person who is actually a good person” route with the character near the middle of the show.

Outside the main highlights of the episode, it was also nice to actually get some insight into Kohina’s character besides her usual static personality by showing how she behaves in her school environment. This show doesn’t take enough time to develop Kohina’s character, which isn’t a problem as long as it makes the interpersonal relationships interesting, which it does very well: That’s where this show excels in, and it’s been solid so far solely based on that- almost to a fault, since the writers are ignoring important elements of writing and comedy.

On a tangent, it’s a bit too late to mention this, but the soundtrack is very nice to listen to and complements the show very well. The opening song is still terribly annoying to listen to, but the ending is pretty nice and an overall pleasant listen. If anything, this show has charm. They played the opening of this show as the ending song in the first episode, but oh well.

If you like chibi animal mascots and something to kill time with (because face it, every season has a day in the week with crappy anime), I reckon that this show is perfect for it so far.