Category: Total Eclipse

The big downside to having nearly every show air on the same day in a season like this is that if you’re away for the weekend you suddenly have an incredible backlog. It’s gonna take me a while to catch up to everything here.

In any case, Total Eclipse showed its true colours in this episode with what I presume to be the main cast. And if I have to be honest, I’m not that impressed by them. A lot of them feel flat and stereotypical, and in particular that Italian Playboy and that Nepalese tsundere are annoying to watch. Apart from that this episode was chock full of one-liners that had a similar problem as Jormungand, in that everyone was just trying to out-snark each other. . The chemistry between these people seems very forced.

On top of that, what makes me wonder is that all these people lost their homes and their country. How can all of them be so cheerful? How can the big angsty flashback be about something as simple as a minor pilot’s quarrel. I’m thinking about swapping this with Tari Tari or Moyashimon if this is what we’re going to get for the rest of this series.
Rating: (Disappointing)

I think that the four other shows that I’m going to blog this season are pretty obvious now, but as for why I chose Total Eclipse over the others:

– Tari Tari will only be 1 cour long. there is no way it’s going to live up to Hana-Saku Iroha with that.
– Moyashimon is just a series that you should watch, instead of talk about. Short blurbs each week are enough for that.
– In the same vein, I don’t really feel like blogging a comedy a la Binbou-gami ga.
– Kyoukai Senjo no Horizon is very creative, but it’s also completely forced and nonsensical.
– This episode was just that good.

I mean, I don’t care that this show is based on one of the best visual novels out there. It has the director of Rosario to Vampire assigned. After Persona 4 I really wasn’t looking forward to another butchered work, especially since Rosario to Vampire had absolutely terrible pacings and camera work, that were bad, far beyond their premises.

This episode however, was really intense. I did spot hints of this in the first episode in how uneventful it was by allowing the female lead to play out her character, but with this, they followed that up wonderfully with one heck of a horror episode, and even before that, this series took its characters seriously. this episode showed that this series can deliver good horror, even when censored and that in this series, people die when they’re killed.

Some criticisms though: why do all these monsters look the same? With that, it’s hard to keep track of whether you’re actually making progress or not. Also, there is supposed to be a real lead character? I like how he didn’t appear so far: screw those conventions. However, do expect me to drop this show when he turns out to be a generic harem lead…

Also, if this is supposed to be the cutting edge of mecha that are being deployed, then why are they used in hand to hand combat? Wouldn’t long range weapons make more sense, since these monsters can only fire along a limited distance? Overall, this show reminds me the most of Blue Gender, but where that series took place at the stage where the earth has been completely conquered, this series looks more into the conquering process. The question is, will the creators be able to make the plot as interesting?
Rating: ** (Excellent)