Category: Other:

Some Quick First Impressions: Phi Brain2, Pretty Rythm Dear My Future and Nazo na Kanojo X

by psgels, posted in Phi Brain, Some Quick First Impressions

Phi Brain 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character solves puzzles.
Okay, so the big question: how on earth will the second season be able to top the first? Well, for starters it’s got a new soundtrack, the graphics got a bit of an upgrade (seriously, the budget for this series isn’t big, but the characters look really good in the shots where some time was spent on). And the new set of villains also has potential. However, these villains use two tropes that can work really well or fail miserably, depending on the execution: amnesia and brainwashing. the exact how and why of things isn’t explained in this first episode, but it was very heavily hinted that these will be major themes of the new season, in which the creators really try to get Kaito’s friends against him. This has a ton of potential, especially with Sato Junichi (who by the way changed positions a bit: he’s now the main writer of this series, instead of the director). However, whatever you do: give these characters a good reason to turn against Kaito. Don’t just do some mumbo jumbo and completely change their character for the sake of drama.
OP: Love the use of guitars. Also dying to see that scene of Nonoha with her hair down.
ED: Such a shame that they didn’t follow up on the first ED by using some other clever visual effect. This was rather all over the place.
Potential: 80%

Pretty Rythm Dear My Future

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to become an idol.
It probably isn’t a surprise to most, but I hate the idol culture. The concept of huge corporations dressing up ditzy girls without any sort of talent and make them sing very cheesy J-pop that is the complete opposite of my taste in music… that is one part of Japan that I have no interest in whatsoever. And yet, I don’t dislike idol anime. There are a bunch of really good ones out there, like Fancy Lala, Full Moon wo Sagashite, White Album and of course Perfect Blue. On the other hand though… there is Pretty Rythm, which embodies every reason I hate idols. This, was an incredibly cheap cash-in that overglorifies idols. It was incredibly poorly produced, the graphics, especially when the characters are turned into CG, look horrible and every single character was incredibly annoying. By far the worst offender was the main character, though. She just keeps whining and whining over and over again about becoming an idol. Even in this season which is full of obnoxious characters, she stands out by being among the worst of them. “Baby… Twinkle Star! It’s… New World!”
ED: Very bad J-Pop
ED: “Who cares about animation? Let’s just advertise some random idol group of ours!”
Potential: 0%

Nazo na Kanojo X

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to date a cute girl.
Okay yes: I have a bias against series with a lot of moe. That played a big part in why I didn’t like Accel World and Sankarea, but this is a genre that has annoyed me so often by now. However, I do give all of these series a chance, and let it be known with this series that I’m more than willing to set this bias aside when the content is actually really good. At first sight Nazo na Kanojo X was a recipe for disaster. I don’t care if the manga was supposed to be good: the porn producers of Hoods could have easily turned this into this bore-fest solely dedicated to the people with a drool fetish. But they actually did it: they took the source material seriously and delivered a very fun and especially weird first episode. The drool doesn’t matter: the two leads play quite well off each other and actually bring something unique to the shounen romance genre. Also, this is a season with a lot of good soundtracks (Lupin, Fate/Zero, Kuroko, Zetman), but surprisingly this one turned out to have the best.
ED: Such a good soundtrack, and then they bring in such an annoying vocalist for the ED.
Potential: 80%

Some Quick First Impressions: Kuroko no Basuke, Upotte and Fate/Zero 2

by psgels, posted in Fate/Zero, Some Quick First Impressions

Kuroko no Basuke

Short Synopsis: Our lead character plays basketball.
Well, they did it again. After the disappointing Prince of Tennis, Knight in the Area and Ginga he Kickoff, there again comes a sports series that really caught my interest, even though I don’t care about sports shows. This episode was fun, and the soundtrack also was great (I like how the guys from RON kept a bit of their influence from when they were working with Bee-Train). The cast of characters is nicely balanced together, and there are a lot of interesting characters in this first episode. It’s not the best, though. The fact that it’s a shounen jump series did come through, in the way that it gives everyone gimmicky powers rather than playing with a more realistic depiction of skills, but at the least they kept these powers subtle instead of over the top. And yeah, by far the big problem with this series will be length. Ideally this should just take 26 episodes. If the creators start dragging on the different matches, it’ll probably lose its appeal quite fast.
OP: Nice inbetween animation.
ED: Guys. If you can’t sing very fast… then don’t try it.
Potential: 80%

Upotte

Short Synopsis: Our lead character teaches cute girls.
I tend to like bizarre stuff. Upotte is bizarre: rather than with Strike Witches, the girls here really act like guns and go to school to learn how to be guns. It had the potential to be this surreal comedy, but instead most of this episode used its premise… for innuendo. Yes guys! Whenever you can’t remember the name of a girl you met, just refer to her by her underwear. You’ll be beaten up, but the girl will take the blame for it! Apart from that, a lot of this episode was about comparing underwear to the handle of a gun, and firing it to an orgasm. Yes, like all other Xebec shows this has its mind in the gutter. The girls also all have one defining personality trait, and it’s pretty much exactly like their other dull, uninspired and completely stupid comedies. The only positive thing I have to say about this series is that at least one of the writers did some research on guns. Also, I get that the main character is offensively dull and all, but why did you censor his face?
OP: Copy&Paste OP with the same dull J-rock you hear everywhere else.
ED: FANSERVICE
Potential: 5%

Fate/Zero 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights giant monsters.
Most series that consist out of two seasons have a clear separation between the two. Not this one: it continues immediately where the first season left off, in the middle of a huge climactic battle. So no, this is not a good point to enter for those who haven’t seen the first season. My impression of this episode was that it was pretty interesting. There also was this particularly interesting dogfight, and especially Archer caught my eye. There were some moments that were a bit silly, like when two random fighter jets randomly popped up. Also, Ufo-Table need to work on how they animate monsters. The whole caster thing didn’t really feel threatening, more like very annoying and hard to get rid off. The CG for this thing just wasn’t used well.
OP: A Yuki Kajiura OP! Not her best work, but still very nice to listen to.
ED: A bit cheesy, but it’s an ED that actually tells a story rather than showing a bunch of random pictures.
Potential: 85%

Some Quick First Impressions: Jewel Pet Kira Deco, Yurumates 3D and Sankarea

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Jewel Pet Kira Deco

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a mascot.
Jewel Pet always was this really annoying series with WAY TOO MUCH SUGAR, even for your average show for young girls. This time though, it seems like some crack slipped in with the sugar, because what the hell did I just watch? This episode got surreal at times, as some really bizarre ideas passed the screen. I am really not sure who found it a good idea to turn the moon into a television or a disco-ball, or why there is a sentient bus made completely out of jewels. Speaking of which: this show has a really, really unhealthy obsession with Jewels. I know it’s called Jewel Pet and that the first episodes of the previous seasons had a gair amount of them in it. But it’s just taken completely overboard. These guys stick jewels on almost everything. I’ll never be able to look at “bling bling” the same way… But granted, due to these surreal ideas, this was indeed the best first episode of Jewel Pet that I got to sample. Not that that standard is particularly high to beat though…
OP: Terrible song.
ED: The singer here can’t sing, but also doesn’t help that the song is again terrible..
Potential: 40%

Yurumates 3D

Short Synopsis: Our lead character moves to Tokyo.
Here is another one of these series with 5-minute episodes. And again it was pretty dull. It’s about this girl who moves into a new apartment and gets totally overwhelmed by her new roommates… and that’s it. This series did try to be funny using the usual tricks… only it wasn’t. I really don’t have much to say about this one: this is just a boring slice of life series, nothing more and nothing less. Oh, but the voice actress of the female lead is very annoying. Way too high-pitched.
OP: Bad J-pop and giant robots.
Potential: 0%

Sankarea

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to date the hottest girl in town.
Well, this was also pretty boring. Sankarea is like the show you sometimes see, that has a lot of moe, yet decent dialogue and good acting, yet still consists out of way too many cliches. This episode already established a pseudo-harem of three girls for him (no, I don’t care that two of those are his sister and cousin; that’s never stopped anime before anyway), there is the standard whining best friend, and the encounter between the main couple happens the same way as usual, with the male lead running into the main girl’s moment of weakness. Too much of this episode was “been there, done that” and there was little to make up for it. The only thing that caught my attention was the main characters’ feelings for his dead cat, of all things. But yeah, other than that this pretty much is Studio Deen’s second zombie show this season, only this time it’s the girl who gets to be one. At least the visuals looked pretty. I could recognize that the artists who worked on this episode also worked on Jigoku Shoujo.
OP: Creative use of visuals, at least.
ED: Actually good song.
Potential: 30%

Phi Brain Review – 82,5/100

by psgels, posted in Anime Reviews, Phi Brain



Apologies for the delay on this review, but I first wanted to get all of the new episodes this season done. Phi Brain was a series that many people probably quickly discarded. It started really silly, and the entire premise takes a lot of suspense of disbelief to accept: “yeah, there is this kid who has to solve puzzles in order to battle this evil organization”. Most of the early episodes just consist out of Kaitou (the male lead) solving a bunch of puzzles.

Now, the puzzles are obviously a very big part of this series. If you can look past the silly premise, then you’ve got a series that can be quite creative when it comes to the puzzles that it throws at its main cast. The show actually presents its big puzzles so that the viewer can try to solve them himself, but only if he uses the pause button in the middle of each episodes. The characters in this series are usually very fast when it comes to solving puzzles, and it’s impossible to take everyone into account here. At a certain point int he series this series turns its puzzles into 1-on-1 battles anyway.

In any case, those who did keep watching were rewarded in the character department, because as soon as this show starts developing its character (I’d say with the arrival of Rook, around episode 10), it never stops. Kaitou in particular grows into a very sympathetic character, and the side characters all work around him, and all of them have a good backstory with especially good reasons for their actions. The creators actually convinced me that the entire premise was at least partly plausible. There are times when this show gets a bit too sappy, but the majority was really well directed and had this great combination between action and characterization.

Were the first episodes wasted then? Nah, they’re just silly. Beyond that are very creative puzzles and good stories, although this series does have its points where it completely ignores all of Newton’s laws. The characters are all enjoyable as well, and especially Gammon stands out in his quirky antics as not your ordinary rival.

Visually this series mostly stands out in its designs. Both the puzzles as the characters look unique. The actual animation of the characters is very inconsistent, but it’s nothing special or bad. The music is very well done, though.

This remains a shounen series, and it loses points for being a bit too sappy at times, but this nevertheless this was a very interesting attempt to do something different with the genre that is usually nothing but people throwing superpowers at each other. With some damn good characterization I do recommend this if you’re looking for something in that direction.

Storytelling: 8/10 – Well storyboarded and manages to make solving puzzles fun.
Characters: 9/10 – There is a surprising amount of depth to these charcters, which especially manifests in the second half.
Production-Values: 8/10 – Great designs, decent animation, good soundtrack.
Setting: 8/10 – Creative puzzles, but completely ignores the laws of physics at times. The whole premise of this show is also really hard to buy.

Suggestions:
– The Law of Ueki
– Kaleido Star
– Princess Nine

Some Quick First Impressions: Acchi Kochi, Sengoku Collection and Shirokuma Cafe

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Acchi Kocchi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a random high schooler.
This is the type of slice of life series that I have a really hard time enjoying. This was basically an entire episode consisting of random incidents of the characters doing random stuff, without much coherence between them other than “they go to school” or “they go to the game store”. A lot of this episode was just random, but didn’t really show much of the characters other than their basic personalities. It’s good to see an actual couple for once (they are, right?), but this overall just was too boring. The moe antics also didn’t really help, because the girls in this show all try way too hard to be cute. Yes, all of them.
OP: Who on earth found it a good idea to make these poor voice actors sing. This sounds terrible.
ED: “Hey, you know you can buy figures from this series? We’re just here to remind you! *wink wink, nudge nudge*
Potential: 20%

Sengoku Collection

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the guy who united Japan when it just consisted out of a number of warring states.
Well, I didn’t think it was possible, but yes: there actually is a series this season that is worse than Queen’s Blade and Naruto SD. Good lord, Oda Nobunaga, what have they done to you? I mean, I knew that this series would turn famous people from the Sengoku era into moe girls, but I didn’t think that it’d be this bad. This series’ Oda was the most annoying tsundere I have seen in a long while. Throughout the entire episode she did nothing but whine and attempt to act cute. even though she didn’t really do anything. Her acting was terrible, and to make matters even worse: she somehow ends up in modern day, and runs into a common loser. This is the worst kind of wish fulfillment. It’s dull, bland, it doesn’t try at all and just relies on the fact that it has a bunch of badly delivered moe antics in the hopes of selling DVDs. I mean, I know that fiction is about taking artistic liberties with history. However, this gimmick isn’t even new. People have been turning famous figures into annoying cute girls for ages now. Are there really people who get turned on by this?
OP: “We couldn’t be bothered to animate the whole thing, so here are a bunch of uninspired slide-shows.”
ED: Very badly sung, especially in combination with those instruments.
Potential: 0%

Shirokuma Cafe

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a panda.
Holy crap, where did this come from? I mean, every season has its set of series that get announced later than usual, and which are usually these bad and minimally produced gimmick series. In this season however, they just continue to surprise me with their solid execution. Shirokuma Cafe turned out to be a bizarre slice of life series, but it’s actually fully animated and the characterization here really is surprisingly good and realistic. The creators here perfectly captured the laziness that you’d expect from a panda without reverting to cliches. It was a tad annoying at times, but this really was surprisingly heart-warming and the jokes were pretty good too. The entire series is based around a cafe, with the three main characters being a panda, polar bear and penguin. You’d expect that all three would end up working there, but no: the polar bear is the only employee, the rest of the characters just are guests. As for what the panda’s job is… well, just watch the episode if you want to find out.
OP: There aren’t many good OPs this season, but the ones that are good are really good here.
ED: Stop-motion using go pieces. Great idea!
Potential: 75%

Some Quick First Impressions: Gon, Arashi no Yoru ni and Kuromajo-San ga Tooru

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Gon

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a dinosaur.
Forget about the title. Forget about the main character, he’s just some random kid with superpowers. No, this series is about a bear named Ussu. This is the guy who made this show surprisingly entertaining for a kids’ show. I was really fearing after having to sit through that Naruto SD show, but these series can actually be funny. Aside from Usu, there are a couple of other characters in this show who had some good jokes, the albatross in particular. Gon really is just a vehicle to bring everything together. In the meantime though, he also is very annoying. Oh, and if you’re wondering what the heck mammals are doing in a dinosaur show: the show also doesn’t explain that. It’s just a random island with a bunch of animals in which a dinosaur randomly appears. This series is obviously very childish and all, but here is the thing: aside from Uchuu Kyoudai (which isn’t a real comedy anyway), this was the funniest first episode i got to sample this season so far.
OP/ED: Warning: do not listen to these songs, unless you want them to get stuck inside your head for the rest of the week.
Potential: 75%

Arashi no Yoru ni

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are polar opposites.
This is what I mean by kids series trying harder: this series has an actual story that challenges the characters, rather than being random fighting or hi-jinks. Movies have already gotten this down, but there are very few TV-series like this, which is why I’m glad this was made, even though it already was adapted into a movie. What I hope is that this show will expand on the movie’s themes and allow everything to flow more naturally. This episode gave a good start: it was pretty similar to how the movie started, only with a bit more dialogue here and there; a good start. I especially liked how this episode focused on how forced this entire premise is, but in a good way. In terms of animation this series clearly is inferior, because the CG can look quite ugly at times, but at least the characters move around a lot here, and they do so differently from your average CG-show. My big fear of this show will be the overacting: this episode kept it from going overboard, but there is potential for this to dive into straight-up melodrama.
OP: Um, guys. A little too much of romantic undertones here…
ED: The same “let’s have the cast walk nowhere”-ed that you see everywhere (this makes three this season already)
Potential: 70%

Kuromajo-san ga Tooru

Short Synopsis: Our lead character does magic stuff.
So, this turned out to be a story of a girl who gets harassed by a black witch and ends up as one in training. Episodes are only 7 minutes long, and it’s all fairly plain and all, but for a kiddie show it could have been worse. If you want your kids to be quiet for 10 minutes, this show is good bait for this. For older audiences though…. I don’t think that this show has much to offer. A lot of stuff in this episode just happened for the heck of it, and this show is also pretty bad at explaining why everything is happening, with pretty minimal animation. It’s not as bad as with the horrid flash shows, but any less animation and this would be a slide-show. Also, the teacher in this series is an asshole. In the end, the creators could have taken more chances. I mean, Risky Safety was a show with the exact same premise, but it was 50 times more adorable and creative than this here.
OP: Cheese
Potential: 40%

Some Quick First Impressions: Lupin the Third – Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna, Medaka Box and Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka – Of The Dead

by psgels, posted in Lupin III - Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna, Some Quick First Impressions

Lupin the Third – Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a thief.
The visuals in this series are incredible. The character designs, the background art: it all looks gorgeous and very artistic, and the animation really brings them alive. And this episode revealed something more: you know Shinichirou Watanabe? He’ll be the music producer in this series again, ON TOP of directing Sakamichi no Appolon this season. The soundtrack also was full of Jazz songs that fitted the show really well. Beyond that, this show will probably be a collection of stories around Mine Fujiko, with the center around adventure. This episode was quite interesting and entertaining, and especially Lupin and Mine Fujiko played off each other quite well. This episode showed how the two of them met, so you don’t need to be familiar with the Lupin franchise at all to get this series. There is a lot of nudity in this series however, but thankfully it’s nowhere near the usual fanservice you see all over anime. My one complaint is that the side-characters are rather one-sided. Let’s hope that the next episodes can bring some change into that, because this really deserves it.
OP: One of the most unique OPs I’ve seen in a while. And also the best.
ED: A bit less interesting, though still a good song.
Potential: 90%

Medaka Box

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a student council vice president.
Well, I do admit that Gainax’ execution helps with a premise like this. This episode was over the top and moved fast, which is definitely preferable to seeing another really slow-paced high school series. Overall there are some things in this episode that I disliked, like the camera’s uncanny ability to focus on Medaka’s boobs, or how she’s just way too perfect as a character, and most of the rest of the cast perhaps isn’t the most interesting, but they do have potential for later. At the very least the creators spent quite a bit of time on the main couple and how they were when they were kids. That’s a good thing for an opening episode to do. This probably won’t be anything amazing, but by the looks of it it’ll still be pretty entertaining.
OP: Unimpressive J-pop
Potential: 70%

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka – Of the Dead

Short Synopsis: Our lead character lives together with a bunch of cute girls.
This episode really reminded me why i came to dislike Kore wa Zombie so much: it doesn’t even seem to be trying! This show is supposed to be a comedy. Half of this episode was nothing but repeating jokes from the first season and random out of place slice of life, which also just copied the first season. The other half was just building up to one joke, which was incredibly forced and half of which was also copied from the first season. There were two new characters introduced… both of which immediately got added to Ayumu’s harem. And then there was the animation: the creators blew all of the budget on the OP, making the actual animation of this show very dull, again with scenes blatantly copied from the first season. It’s clear that at this point, the creators have completely run out of inspiration and therefore are trying to fill their time with these gimmicks. Comedies should be bold! They should be entertaining and well thought out. Not these uninspired moe hacks like this.
OP: At least this is well animated. But Studio Deen, you’re putting your priorities at the complete wrong place.
ED: Oh come on…
Potential: 10%

Some Quick First Impressions: Recorder to Randsell Re, Naruto SD – Rock Lee no Seishun Full-Power Ninden and Queens Blade Rebellion

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Recorder to Randsell Re

Short Synopsis: Our lead character stands out.
So, time to check back on how this series turned out. And my impression of this series has gone down even more. We’re supposed to be 14 episodes into the series already, and all this episode did was re-establish the premise of this show: having a very tall younger brother and a very tiny younger sister. What happened in the previous episodes, really? This felt like watching the first episode all over again. There doesn’t seem like any progress was made at all. I know that the episodes are only 2 minutes long and all, but this is a bit too extreme. On top of that, I like my comedies to be well acted. This was the entire opposite of that. Especially the brother was hard to watch.
ED: Dull song. And why the sudden fanservice?
Potential: 0%

Naruto SD – Rock Lee no Seishun Full-Power Ninden

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a bad Naruto fanfic character.
Oh god… make it stop. One of the hardest types of episodes to sit through with these kinds of first impressions is the bad comedy. I mean, Queen’s Blade was terrible, but it still was kindof bearable due to how bad it was. Naruto SD however, is a series that fails miserably at being entertaining. This was 25 minutes of sitting through horrible jokes. Over and over again. The creators of this series have no idea how to tell good jokes. More often than not we just have Rock Lee act random for no discernible reason, it keeps repeating its bad jokes over and over, and this show thrives on making random toilet jokes that fail at being funny. The characters are all incredibly annoying and probably the only value this holds is for diehard fans of the Naruto franchise. And yet for some inexplicable reason this show finds it necessary to explain the basic premise of this show over and over again.
OP: Cheesy J-Rock
ED: Also dull aside from the random dancing.
Potential: 0%

Queens Blade Rebellion

Short Synopsis: Our lead character boobs.
Look. I’m not against all fanservice. In fact, the series I’m looking forward to the most this season will probably have tons of it as well. However, what I can’t stand are the series who use it as an excuse for being terrible. It really is a shame that pasting a bunch of boobs everywhere guarantees dvd sales like this. This episode was by far the worst first episode I had to watch this season so far. The action was terribly choreographed and made no sense. And really: I don’t care how many famous voice actors you got for this show; the acting still is abysmal. Oh, and I have to congratulate this series, for pulling the dumbest twist I have ever seen while sampling these first episodes. Really: imagine a girl with big boobs (clearly visible) in a short skirt and very long coloured hair. It takes until the armor around her boobs breaks for everyone to realize her gender. I… have no idea. In more than six years of blogging, I have never seen stupidity this big.
ED: Poorly produced J-Rock song. Not to mention the terrible visuals.
Potential: 0%

Some Quick First Impressions: Zetman, Kimi to Boku 2 and Accel World

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, Zetman

Zetman

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has superpowers.
Whoa, I really love the visuals in this series. The animation during the fight scenes in particular was just amazing. Most first episodes are very crisply produced with a lot of inbetween frames. The animation here however put in something extra. The animation was wild and vivid, and sometimes quite messy, which lead to some awesome camera angles. The character designs also work much better than what I first expected based on the promo art. The faces of these characters have depth, so to speak. My big fear for this series was that the script would move too fast, but that too turned out surprisingly well. The first parts of this episode moved very fast, but the points where it mattered, this episode really took its time to tell its story. This is pacing that’s actually well balanced, rather than all over the place.
ED: Catchy, but a bit too much synth. Why the hell are you spoiling a twists that’s coming up, though?
Potential: 90%

Kimi to Boku 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are a bunch of teenaged boys.
AS much as Chizuru gets on my nerves… I yet again have to admit that this episode was excellent slice of life. In fact, this was one of the better episodes of Kimit o Boku due to how incredibly natural the dialogue was. In particular the second half was really well written, even though it was just characters talking to each other. It’s the kind of slice of life where nothing happens, yet things happen. Instead of a forced moral at the end, the episode just ended with the cast doing something random they felt like. Again, Chizuru still is really annoying, and the random cats still are pretty pointless, but this was a typical episode of Kimi to Boku, which somehow at the end of every episode uses its annoyances to do something interesting with the characters. If you can stand the obnoxious characters, you’ll like it. Otherwise: don’t bother.
OP: Either my laptop couldn’t follow the frame-rate, or the visual effects were rather cheesy this time.
ED: Why that cat?
Potential: 80%

Accel World

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a creepy stalker.
I had no time to also watch the second episode that came out, but based on just the first episode, I really fear that this show will be… annoying to watch. It’s a shame though, because there is some definite potential in the setting for some good science fiction. I actually liked the way in which this series combined the real world with its fictional virtual world on top of it. So why on earth did they have to settle for a harem around such a wimpy protagonist. I like how for once the main character is overweight (although he literally is the only character in this show who is like that), but he was really annoying to watch with his annoying whining throughout the entire episode. This episode already introduced two potential love interests who take interest in him for very flimsy reasons, which really isn’t a good sign for the romance in this show. The rest of the cast also was pretty bland, with the worst being the worst portrayal of bullies I’ve seen in a while with three guys who are constantly bothered by constipation or something and just randomly assault their victims, even in the midst of dozens of people. I’m at this point really doubting whether or not to continue watching this: there definitely are a few good things here; the animation is also very good, but I just know that the cast will get on my nerves a lot.
Potential: 50%

Some Quick First Impressions: Saint Seiya Omega, Folk Tales from Japan and Uchuu Kyoudai

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, Uchuu Kyoudai

Saint Seiya Omega

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is destined to save the world.
Oh yes. This show knows how to deliver good action. This entire episode was almost non-stop gorgeously animated, with a wonderful use of its character designs, colours and camera angles. There is detail both in the giant blasts that the characters fire at each other, and the subtle character animations. This will be a series chock full of eye candy. On top of that, the creators also succeeded in putting a lot of emotion into just this one episode. Toei, I’m impressed. The one thing that seemed to be missing in this episode however, was context. Who are these people? What are they fighting for? I mean, I understand that they’re protecting the world and all, but what world, and why should I care about it? Beyond the conflict of having two parties who fight each other, there was surprisingly little else in this episode. For an opening episode I can understand that you’d ignore this, but the next episodes should put some focus into that, then.
OP: Nice upbeat rock tune, again with some nice eye candy.
Potential: 80%

Folktales from Japan

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters come from classic folk tales.
Yes, this is actually a kiddie show that actually wants to tell stories, rather than sell merchandise. The stories here involve money, but apart from that there is nothing commercial about this series and instead the creators decided to bring life to a collection of folk tales that people used to tell children. The animation in this episode was realyl simple, but I appreciate what it’s trying to do. As for the stories themselves, they’re nicely told for a kids’ series, but when you start to look at the moral of each story things get a bit weird. At first sight it’s the standard “bad karma will bite you back”-stuff, but this series takes it a bit too much beyond the comfort zone: if you do good stuff you will be rewarded with vast riches, but if you do bad stuff, or even look like a bad guy, you get to live in poverty. I’m not expecting Mouryou no Hako or anything from this series of course, but the way in which nearly every good character got incredibly rich in all of the three stories in this episode was a bit too much.
OP: They actually got a good singer for this.
ED: Another “let’s have the cast walk”-ED. Good singer, though.
Potential: 40%

Uchuu Kyoudai

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to be an astronaut.
Now this was good. This was really good. First of all, we’ve got another series where the main character is a guy in his thirties. The kid who showed up in the promo art of this series is just there to symbolize his inner child and how he grew up. The meat of this series really is about how this guy is going to go into space. And that with a series that will be 51 episodes long. Considering the length, this episode did an amazing job to show who this guy is, what drive him, how he changed over the years and what his personality is like. This episode would have even be sufficient if the series only had 13 or even 6 episodes. The main character himself is really likable, and this episode had a number of very good jokes around him. Yes, this series set a very big standard for the rest of the series this season.
OP: A definite contender for the best OP of the season. Amazing use of images, and a great song
ED: The same “let’s have the characters running over a dull j-rock song”-ED that you see everywhere.
Potential: 95%