Jewel Pet – Tinkle
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is socially inept and gets to magical girl.
Last year, when the first season of Jewel Pet aired it really had been ages since a good kids’ show had debuted. I was glad enough that at least something was there. This season however couldn’t be any more different: with Marie&Gali, Heartcatch Precure, Kaidan Restaurant and Kiruminzoo, the standard for this season’s kids’ series has been set higher than ever, so for once, I get the chance to be really strict against a kids’ series! This episode was terrible; I couldn’t find any hint of creativity whatsoever. The creators just grabbed the weird animales of the first season and dumped them to another kid, who has been made as purposefully dull as possible. The hijinks that the creators decided to fill this episode with were just abysmal as well. We get to see endless jokes of the lead ‘Jewel Pet”s magic screwing up and causing trougle. And the animation! The characters all have plastic faces. Especially these jewel pets have had WAAAAAY too much plastic surgery in their life. The different expressions of the characters hardly ever change. Not to mention the utterly horrid character-design of just about every character (seriously… what the heck are those heterochromic cats supposed to be…?). If you’re interested in a kids’ show, go for one of the series I mentioned above. Skip this one.
OP: Horribly cheesy J-pop
ED: Uninspired and bland.
Potential: 0%
Rainbow
Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are delinquents in jail.
Okay, so it did turn out that this series does not have Madhouse’s best staff. The direction feels jerky, and the voice acting is often over the top and cheesy. These are the type of characters who aren’t going to be the most realistic or believable. Having said that, though, this was one heck of an intense episode. What this episode lacked in terms of good acting, it made up for atmosphere with an excellent soundtrack to boot. The prison here was definitely meant to model the worst kinds of circumstances you can run into: it has a paedophile doctor and a downright abusive warden. On top of that, the OP also very much hinted at the fact that the creators have no intention whatsoever to just cut this series off in the middle: they really want to show what happens to these kids when they grow up later, and that’s what I’m looking forward to the most. This can be an interesting test to see whether you can portray interesting characters, even with sub-par acting.
OP: Whoa!
Potential: 70%
Angel Beats
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is dead.
The thing I love about this season is that it keeps exceeding my expectations. From the outside Angel Beats looked like a bit of a Haruhi-clone directed by a comedy director who has never been known for his subtlety. This episode showed that the Haruhi-references were merely homages: it more than has its own story and characters to tell. The director also gives off a very strong performance in this opening episode, making this an excellent opening. There really was a ton of fast-paced dialogue in this episode, and at the same time it was full of subtle and not-so-subtle jokes. It makes use of the fact that it takes place in a world in which nobody can die by killing off people for fun, while still putting in the tensions and fears of being erased by ‘God’. The climax was also very well written and allowed the build-up to really come together. The animation is a bit simple, but the graphics themselves look pretty good, especially the concert scene. The thing I also loved was how this series showed that the NPCs of the world it takes place in all have lives. The concert, was really something to show that these people also just do things for fun, rather than existing randomly. Thumbs up.
Potential: 80%