Category: Some Quick First Impressions

Fuuun Ishi Dai Shogun

Short Synopsis: Our lead character kicks ass and is a virgin.
Um… Okay. I have to confess here: I laughed at this series quite a bit. This show really is the creators just jerking around and not taking themselves seriously at all. Everything in this series was just hamming it up, from start to finish. While this looked like a random samurai show with fighting can be more classified as a comedy with lots of fighting, sex jokes, freaking mechas that appear from out of bloody nowhere, ninjas and people who look like samurai. What saves this show from its contemporaries is that it can actually be funny, and the sex jokes are equally putting men and women down, objectifying them both. I’d say, go for this one if you like crass and unashamed comedy, for one episode and one episode only. Yeah, I’m not in the delusion that this will remain funny for long. This looked like a show where the best jokes were spent in the first episode. One random detail: the soundtrack is surprisingly good for some weird reason.
OP: Bland J-Rock, that’s the best you can think of?
Potential: 45%

Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu Ka

Short Synopsis: Our lead character geht zu Deutschland um kaffee zu bedienen.
This show has one aim, and one aim only: being as cute as humanly possible. It doesn’t succeed, but at least puts in a bit of effort: it’s just a dumb series about a bunch of girls talking to each other and nothing more, but the banter has its amusing moments. Of course it also has plenty of moments that are just bad, like how one of the characters walks around in her underwear for no reason whatsoever. At times it gets a bit too dumb for its own good, and I’m not going to continue watching this, but I uess it’ll make a few slice of life fans quite happy.
OP: Meh, generic J-pop again.
ED: Really badly sung
Potential: 30%

Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character marries a king of a rich country.
Ooh, this has been a long while: an actual shoujo adventure series. After Fushigi Yuugi this was a genre that for a few years enjoyed some real popularity, but it has nearly died out during the past years. So of course it’s up to the director of Fushigi Yuugi to finally do something new again. Having said that though: I watched a few episodes of it and didn’t continue with it due to how incredibly stupid some of the characters were. In Fushigi Yuugi this was the main female lead, though in Soredemo it’s the cast of side characters. The main character isn’t exactly bright or anything, but she does have charisma: she’s interesting to watch and I see potential for her to become a balanced character. However, I do have to say that when you compare this series to the big ones: Ashita no Nadja, Twelve Kindoms, Saiunkoku Monogatari, Kaleido Star, Glass Mask… yeah it really is shallow. But heck, if this can revitalize the genre and allow the shoujo genre to reach its former depth again, then I’m all in!
ED: Quite a lazy ED with a boring song
Potential: 50%

And here is a collection of really quick impressions for the shows that I really can’t be arsed to really write much about.

Dragonar: random harem crap with a nonsensical premise.

Mangaka-san to Assistant-kun: this is just crap. The lengths that creators go to to get girls to grope themselves. I especially hate how the creators treat it like it’s the most normal thing to do.

Daimidaler: this show… it’s by far the single worst show of the season. Dear god, did I actually see this show that completely and unashamedly glorifies groping every single women you lay your eyes on? Seriously Japan? Fanservice is one thing, but this show actually promotes sexual harrassment

Kamigami no Asobi: Those male transformation sequences… And oh my god, these bishies are so pretty that flowers spontaneously bloom in their vicinities. I know that this show uses existing tropes and all, but the way in which it carries them further than everreaches the point where it looks so bad that it becomes funny. And OH MY GOD THEY ACTUALLY HAVE A PINK FLUFFY PEGASUS. Yeah, definitely so bad it’s hilarious territory, although that won’t last beyond one episode.

Brynhildr‘s main character is so impulsive that he has no control over his actions and can’t even wait for a bit while checking out a girl who resembles a girl he knew ten years ago. Could have had potential, but I got turned off by the fanservice, awkward acting and the school setting. The OP’s good though.

Kanojo ga Flaw wo Orareta‘s lead has the same problem as Brylhildr (seriously have some creativity dammit!), but at least she’s aware of her own actions. This show is a lot weirder than what I thought it would be. This show plays with irony, but it’s laying it on really heavy here. This feels like a worse version of Noucome.

Soul Eater Not: What have they done to you?! It’s so generic! Everything here is blatantly uninspired and bland! What did Soul Eater ever do to deserve this?

Captain Earth

Short Synopsis: Our lead character must use Captain Earth to protect the planet from evil aliens!
This show gets it: what makes a great opening episode. I’ve mentioned hinting many times before, and the creators here are really good at that. The entire episode just kept hinting at stuff over and over again, either to things that it would showcase a few minutes later, but also enough hints about the course of the rest of the show, about the different characters, the villains. This really was the kind of episode that made me excited to see more about this show, to learn more about the characters, and to find out how the setting works here. That’s pretty good for a show that at first sight deems like a generic mecha series. On top of that, this series also really knows that it’s an anime, and you can see a lot of stuff being said inbetween the lines, with nonverbal communication. This episode was very compact and it used that time optimally to show as much about the different characters as it could, including a short flashback. The soundtrack is excellent as well. If it can keep this up then this will be a killer.
ED: Boring song, and I hope that next week we’ll get more than a black screen
Potential: 90%

One Week Friends

Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets a girl in high school
Wheee…. another high school series… how exciting… what an original setting…. Sarcasm aside, One Week Friends at the very least is a good show about dating. It shows the main couple spending time together, there is a visible chemistry between them, rather than them being totally not a match, their conversation feels quite natural. Really, the only thing I can really fault it is being boring. Really, I’m nust not in the mood for watching a show that’s entirely about the romance of a bunch of high school kids, but for what it did, it did a pretty good job. So because of that it’s a good thing that the second half brought in a bit of interesting and surprisingly good drama, and the success of this series will depend entirely on how they’ll use the main gimmick of this series. If we’re just going to watch the same episode over and over again, this will obviously become a failure. However if they continue to challenge all characters involved in different ways, then this can actually become something.
OP: Nice art.
ED: A good ending that actually segues in from the end of the episode. Finally another series that gets it.
Potential: 75%

Mahouka

Short Synopsis: Our lead character uses magic and enters high school.
Really now? This is the next big thing to appear? Where we last year had Shingeki no Kyojin, we now have a show taking place at a high school where people fight with magic with a heavy dose of incest? This is the best you can offer? There was just this world war, everything has changed, and the only thing that the creators could think of was to start with was a high school? I mean, I had hoped that at least the execution in this episode would make up for things, but we only got some nicely animated fight scenes, plus a few characters who take themselves a bit more serious than usual. But even then, the dialogue has some really weird issues. Characters make random leaps in logic, things don’t make any sense, and the comic relief is incredibly forced. And really, I don’t care if the light novel that this is based on is really good: it’s the execution of the anime that really matters. The fact of the matter remains that this is YET ANOTHER show about incest. Also, “Weed” and “Bloom” remain really stupid names. If it were supposed to be about discrimination, it did a pretty generic and black-and-white job about it. I’m not expecting tons of depth from a first episode, but I am looking for hints that this show knows what it’s doing. I got none here!
ED: Generic J-rock
Potential: 30%

Baby Steps

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to play tennis.
Haikyuu could really use some lessons from Baby Steps. This episode actually worked, and it showed that a first episode doesn’t necessarily have to be full of excitement. I just need to see that the creators know what they’re doing. This episode had its problems, but at the same time it actually tried to break some of the cliches of the sports anime. For example: while the series is yet again about high schoolers, it’s not about a high school tennis team, but instead the characters practice at a tennis club outside of school. Watching anime, you’d nearly think that those things don’t exist in Japan. This also allows for some variety in the people you see walking around, ranging from kids to adults. Beyond that, this first episode nailed how you’d obviously get extreme muscle ache when you start training really hard from out of nowhere. Plus the characters actually break some molds. Not all of them; there still are some obnoxious cliches present, but I do appreciate how this show is trying to remove some of the blatant sexism that exists in the genre. Usually in sports series, the women get delegated to be a manager. Pretty much a pointless role other than for some romantic tension. Here, the lead female actually wants to go pro, and is actually very talented. That’s a nice step here. Just don’t let her degrade into this romantic trophy, okay? That would be even worse. Heck, there still is enough that can go wrong here, but the start is there, at least.
OP: Generic J-rock, though I guess better than average.
ED: The singers don’t work together, this ED sounds weird
Potential: 65%

Haikyuu

Short Synopsis: Our lead character plays volleyball
I like sports anime, however I dislike watching sports. How is that possible? Well, because of the incredible execution of some of these sports series. Giant Killing, Cross Game, Chihayafuru, even think sports Shogi and Go. These shows made me throw away all of my biases and managed to make me like something I normally have no interest whatsoever in. Because of that though, I have come to expect high standards from sports series: stand out. Promote your passions. Don’t just go lazy and show this ambitious bratty kid who just enters school who somehow becomes the center of the series. And yeah.. that’s exactly what Haikyuu does. A first episode that didn’t really stand out in any way, they keep to all of the basics. There also is this rival who also fills in way too many cliches. I mean come on. Use some creativity for god’s sake. I also did not manage to finish the first episode of this one. I know it’s unprofessional and all, but right now I don’t care. I find it more important to check out as many series, rather than force myself to sit through an entire episode that I already know is not going to be anything for me.
OP: Generic sports OP blah
ED: At least the guitar is nice
Potential: 30%

Akuma no Riddle

Short Synopsis: Our lead character battles assassins
Yup, this one turned out as expected. Akuma no Riddle is a series that tries to look all cool, but shining behind that is the ridiculous stupidity of the premise. And now don’t get me wrong: I like really far-fetched premises, but not when said premise goes out of its way to include a school in a setting it totally doesn’t belong. I mean really: this just is another one of those school battle shows that’s perhaps a bit grittier than usual. Nothing else stands out. It did not make up for this premise in the slightest. The characters all just have one quirk that they try really hard to shove down the viewers’ throats, especially with the snarky characters. Add everything together and yeah, I see no potential. I didn’t even have enough interest to finish the entire episode.
OP: At least it’s not bad j-pop
ED: Vocalist does a pretty bad job…
Potential: 30%

Mushishi Season 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character can see strange creatures called Mushi.
Jojo is glorious and all, and that’s of course fine and dandy. But let’s not forget what that show really is: a dose of adrenaline that you watch before you start punching an angry bear or something. It’s consistently awesome to watch, but here comes the real deal: Mushishi goes a whole lot further. It’s on a whole different level. This is intelligent; this is art, this series, more than anything else, has its own vision and doesn’t care about anything else. It’s the best of its genre, and based on this episode, the creators still are incredibly competent: the atmosphere, the animation, the pacing, the mood: everything fits perfectly. This really creates something much more than the sum of its parts, that individually are already amazing. Best show of the year? Something would have to go really weird for it not to be the case. Heck, this show is the best of its genre. Aria, Natsume Yuujinchou? Eat your heart out. This episode again had a wonderful story. It’s told from the perspective of a sake brewer, and more than anything, they portray him as an actual human being. This episode is quiet, but they showed a very authentic story of his that made perfect use of both his childhood as his current life.
OP: HOW CAN THIS NOT BE THE SINGLE BEST OP IN YEARS?
ED: HOW CAN THIS NOT BE THE SINGLE BEST ED EVER SINCE THE FIRST SEASON ENDED?
Potential: 100% (Really, it is that I once vowed not to go above 100% with my potentials)

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – Stardust Crusaders

Short Synopsis: Our lead character kicks ass with magical powers and strange poses.
Oh, this was glorious. This is the Jojo that I remember: completely over the top with weird powers and just lots and lots of energy.What I especially like this time is that it’s really a story that spans many generations. We have the main character, his mother, his grandfather and his great-great grandfather all playing a major role here. Obviously its’awesome to see everyone back again, while at the same time seeing this series go into a completely different direction again. The first Jojo was pretty much the ideal son-in-law, while the second was completely crazy in every way. The third meanwhile is dark and gloomy. The reason he works is because of the context of the rest of the series: every single other character being a complete and utter extravert. The good thing also is that this show wastes no time in explaining its powers, hopefully hinting at only few training arcs (yet again, thank god). And at the same time there is one thing that this show still does really well: alternating huge powers, with really small ones. Joseph’s camera trick was hilarious, for example.
Potential: 100%

Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou

Short Synopsis: Our lead character moves into an apartment with a cute girl.
Brains Base seems to have found themselves their own niche: well produced romantic comedies. But here is something they totally missed: comedies don’t necessarily need to be well produced. They need to be well written. Take the Holy Grail from Monty Python for example: it was produced on a shoestring budget for movie standards, but what made it so memorable was the script and the ideas they put in. The script and ideas in this series are… mediocre. Just another kid who starts living in a mansion where a hot girl happens to live in. And the jokes… their delivery is pretty bad. I didn’t really laugh. There were a few times that I was about to, however every single time the show blew that away by awkward timing or focing their laughs way too much. So yeah, I’m not recommending this one.
OP: Mellow, but still nothing more than just a character introduction, though the words and books were nice.
ED: What a corny and sappy song.
Potential: 20%

Blade & Soul

Short Synopsis: Our lead character talks little and kills people
Blade & Soul is the perfect example of how not to do your trailer. Why? It highlighted everything terrible about this anime with a bunch of really badly animated fights plus some ridiculous outfits. And it’s true: the animation in this show is really clunky, the action scenes have awkward animation, and the designers of this series really need to watch this video. However, for some strange reason the creators seem to realize these flaws, resulting in a few interesting positives: the music is actually very good, plus the fights, while plentiful, are kept small and quick. And that for a show that’s based on a game: that takes guts. Because of this, the focus can fall much more on the characters. They’re not anything special, but they work, albeit clunkily acted at times. This episode at the least depended a lot on its atmosphere, which is something you don’t often see with its contemporaries. The question now is: can it keep this up. The atmosphere needs to be like this for the rest of the series. The characters need stuff to do and they need interesting stories. I can already predict: the moment that they will switch over to comic relief is where this show will collapse and start sucking really bad, because with this execution, you can’t deliver good jokes. It’s just impossible. This episode worked because it avoided a lot of common pitfalls.
OP: Bleh, generic
ED: Simple but effective, although the vocalist still can’t sing that well.
Potential: 50%

Selector WIXOSS

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights a children’s card game in order to make a wish.
Um… Selector WIXOSS, why? Just why? From a technical standpoint, you’re a very good series. Characters are animated in a lifelike manner, the voice acting is pretty good, the production values are pretty much at the high end here and you can see that the creators focus a lot on the details for a series that is about battling proxies. Perhaps a bit too shounen, but it was obviously hinting at a few interesting things to happen in the future. So where the heck did the incest come from? Really? You really thought that was necessary? It’s not edgy anymore. Everybody does it. Screw you, just show some siblings that don’t want to try to get into each other’s pants for goodness sake!
OP: Meh, pretty generic.
ED: This one’s pretty nice
Potential: 20%

I’m tired, and I’m soooo far behind. More details on why below, but I do want to finish my impression of this season, but with so many series looking like each other I’m going to do a quick version of the shows that I missed. I’ll try to catch up on the second episodes the upcoming week. I’m really sorry for all the delays.

No-Rin: This one really was terrible. Beyond moronic characters, incredibly annoying acting, and an incredibly pandering premise.

Sakura Trick: I like yuri because for some reason, creators know how to make some really fascinating series when they have lesbians in them (or even better, bisexuality), not just for the sake that there are lesbians in them. Sakura Trick is a show about girls making out. I’m not kidding: so much of this episode was about the awkward moment of the first kiss. Stupid premise, boring characters. Moving on.

Sekai Seifuku: This one had me intrigued for a while. Who are these people? How are they related? Why do they want to destroy the world? However, then the giant monsters showed up and everything turned generic and characters started wearing the most ridiculous outfits. Uh, the women, I mean. Also, as for why they’re conquering the world? It’s all instigated by a little girl. I see no potential in them developing this into anything worthwhile

Wizard Barristers: This was actually not half bad, for a first episode. Especially the animation here surprised me, coming from Arms. This just shows how much good production can trump a production studio’s reputation when it’s really trying, because this probably contained some of the best animation of the season. My big worry is consistency, because the creators here totally aren’t known for that. I know I have this cynical view now, but there have been too many series in 2013 that betrayed my trust for a good plot and characters. I really hope that 2014 will get rid of this cynicism…

Nisekoi: Oh boy, a shaft-series that actually doesn’t feel like an animated slide-show and the characters actually talk about stuff that’s relevant for once. It’s just too bad that this is the most generic premise for any series they’ve done so far (boring high school romance love triangle). Heck, everything that happened in this episode was standard romance fluff that we’ve seen done hundreds of time before. They did recycle the Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei despair-look, but hey. At least it’s a move in the right direction…

Inari Konkon: Oh thank god, finally! A school series that puts emphasis on thinking and learning. It comes up with situations that actually challenge the characters instead of being so mind-numbingly bland. With the current season I was really fearing that my taste had completely changed with how so many different series bored me to death. Now, this is obviously similar to Gingitsune, which I in the end found to be a bit too corny to work. This series doesn’t have the instantly likable characters, however it puts the characters in interesting situations. It’s about bloody time a show does that. You’re supposed to take characters and think: “what situations would get the best out of these characters?” – not “how can we make this character instantly likable outside of any context whatsoever”. That’s not sustainable in the long run!

Oneechan ga Kita: Yeah, the very first scene we see is about the main character walking in on his sister changing. Aside from that, this this was disturbing and weird when they turned the sister into this obsessive stalker.

Silver Spoon: A big reason for the past delays… was the first episode of this season. I have no idea what happened, but I set myself to watch it, and I just could not force myself to sit down and watch it. Why? This has some obviously good characters and it’s a look at farming… and yet something inside me just did not want to watch it. So thank god I finally managed to sit through it. And yeah, it was okay. The romance was a bit annoying (misunderstandings are rather boring…), but you know? It offered a look at school life in a far more detailed way than the other school shows, and the characters remain very versatile and down to earth. And yet, something inside me keeps yelling that I do not want to watch this…

Silver Spoon is objectively good, but I think that I’ve been to objective this season, and need to go back to my roots: creative and engaging series that most people gloss over. When criticizing, some parts indeed boil down to “does it make sense, does it know the writing rules, et cetera”, but the most important part that’s about whether you really like it or not is entirely subjective and incredibly difficult to really describe well. It’s this X-Factor that some shows have and others just don’t. I mean, say what you want about Nobunaga the Fool, for me it was one of the most entertaining first episodes of the new season due to how amazingly pretentious it tried to be. People made fun of me when I gave it such praises, and I realize that even though I’ve been blogging for a long time, I still notice that I still take all my comments very personally to the point where I’m trying to please everyone, instead of doing what I really want to do.

The thing with taste is that there are very different ways people look at anime, and connect with it. And I’m not talking about that “Type A and Type B otaku” that you see at places, that’s way too simplistic, not to mention that I never really considered myself an otaku (though granted it’s a term that many people have different definitions of). In the end what I really noticed is that I love series that are ambitious and combine storytelling, characters, animation, music, setting and symbolism into one whole that is larger than the sum of its parts.

And I need to really convince myself: only you know your own taste best, every taste is unique and worthwhile, and judging others for their taste in anime is most often… quite immature.

Sorry what you had to witness these inner ramblings of mine.

Wake Up Girls

Short Synopsis: Our lead character needs to find some idols.
I’m late with this. I want to finish these first impressions, but I’m tired. And so, in its infinite wisdom Wake up girls decided to have an hour-long first episode. And it’s an idol series! I am not going to watch this one all the way through, however I do want to say that it’s among the better of its genre. From what I watched of this episode, the focus was on the scouting of these girls. That was pretty interesting, and the girls aren’t as overly moe about their personalities. Obviously it’s still blatantly there, but they aren’t trying to shove it down the viewer’s throats. It actually cares about characterization for once. Now, this is not my kind of series and I know that I won’t have time to watch it, but if you like idol shows then this one isn’t bad to keep up with.
Potential: 60%

ZX Ignition

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights with supernatural creatures/angels.
Okay, so I was under the impression that this was a kiddie show. Well, not so much, actually. I mean the characters are a lot older (one of the characters is 19… despite looking nothing like it), and it actually was moderately entertaining. The entire episode was told a bit out of chronological order, which also spiced things up. The main character isn’t your typical wimp, which also helps. A lot happened in this episode which either means that this will be a fast-paced series, or they blew most of their ideas in the first episode. However, when you look at the context, this series falls apart a bit. You have monsters fighting each other because… of stuff. The monsters all have these really cheesy names because… of stuff. The main character also is important because this angel fell onto him because… he just happened to be where she happened to fall. This episode didn’t explain anything, and while enough explanations may follow, I saw no hints at any sort of depth whatsoever so far.
ED: Copy paste song, boring as usual.
Potential: 60%

Engaged to the Unidentified

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has to marry against her will.
I’ve found my surprise of the season with this show. Now don’t get me wrong, the premise is horrible and something that we’ve seen many times before. This series would have been incredibly boring, if it wasn’t for one character: the little girl. You’ll know who I mean when you see her. She made me laugh quite a few more times than what I’d like to admit. I mean, on one hand she uses moe like no other. But on the other she’s like this really weird combination between a child and an adult. Her eloquence is one moment really polite, and the other incredibly childish. The rest of the cast… well they try what they can with a premise of suddenly learning that your grandfather has arranged your marriage behind your back, but the drama is forced and cheesy. That little girl though… she made this worth the watch. The danger with these characters is of course that it’s really difficult for them to carry the show on their own. I mean, this series needs to stay fresh for an entire season. I did not see hints that it will, but who knows?
ED: Generic J-Pop
Potential: 60%

Pupa

Short Synopsis: Our lead character eats stuff.
I really am puzzled for this one. I’d really like to know the story behind this series. How did it get made? Who are responsible for it? Why was it made? I mean, clocking in at only four minutes (three if you ignore the OP and ED) this was obviously made on a shoestring budget. The animation shows the same: there was hardly any inbetween work done here, and the animation that is there looks incredibly jerky. And yet the art itself is very good, and the soundtrack also rocks. Tomomi Mochizuki is a brilliant director who really knows his stuff, so he has to have some kind of idea or vision behind such a series that obviously is going to be short with only twelve episodes. Was this like a project to train some new people at Studio Deen or something? Does that explain why it was delayed one season? I mean, the episode had a good atmosphere, although it was a bit weird and really really short so there was no time to let things sink in. What’s going on here?
OP: Love the art, although it is a bit lazy.
ED: It’s like… the creators made a long version only to hear that it had to be cut incredibly short
Potential: #$@?%

Hozuki no Reitstsu

Short Synopsis: Our lead character works as an executive in hell.
Thank god, finally. Houzuki no Reitetsu was the first episode for which I can really say that yes, it was well written. It already was amongst the top series to look out for, and it did not disappoint. It blows the entire season out of the water in terms of creativity, but it sets itself apart with its script. The way in which the characters talk to each other is delightful. A lot of this series is simple smalltalk, but thankfully the creators did not listen to the Shaft-school of writing dialogue, but they kept things meaningful and to the point, while at the same time throwing in tons of references to Japanese mythology, but also weirdly talked about things like wildlife and Ayer’s Rock. It also weaved in its comedy very nicely: it only makes a joke when it’s got something funny to tell. Some of the jokes were quite clever, something you wouldn’t expect of anime lately where most of the jokes are simply quite crass.
OP: The best OP of the season, introduces the characters with a weird song and trying something different for a change.
ED: This was weird, but still better than the other EDs we got to listen to this season.
Potential: 95%

Hamatora

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a detective.
Okay, I now feel really sorry for Noragami for mistaking it with Hamatora. Sure it was boring and all, but at least it was well told here. Seiji Kishi has no sense of timing whatsoever. This episode was a huge mess, and while it wasn’t such a huge waste of potential like Dagan Ronpa, under a good director I could have seen potential here. Seiji Kishi, let me explain something to you: think of any anime there. Do you recall those random background shots that they keep showing? They do that for a reason: to establish the setting, so that we know where the current scene takes place. You can’t just take that out in an attempt to save time. The same goes for small-talk: the purpose of that is to build your characters and show what kind of people they are. You don’t need to make every sentence in small-talk funny, and you by all means don’t want to force a laugh, because now we got this incredibly stupid analogy about that egg of Columbus that just doesn’t make any sense. A lot of directors and writers nowadays have completely missed the point of build-up! Adapt the freaking story so that everything fits well, don’t try to cram everything in! Pick the right points you want to focus on! Make the story flow already!
OP: Nice and artistic, but the song sucks.
ED: Dull and formulaic j-rock.
Potential: 0%

Super Sonico the Animation

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a gravure model.
Watching this episode really made me facepalm, and realize even more what a terrible state the anime industry is in. It’s not that this episode was terrible. This show does remain incredibl commercialized, being basically nothing more than a way to glorify the incredibly moe mascot of some company. And the moe indeed went through the roof in this episode. But guess what? It wasn’t that bad compared to its contemporaries. The thing with Sonico is that she’s a mascot, so she needed to be portrayed in an as good light as possible. The creators knew that all too well, and in the process they created an actually good character. The thing is: Sonico works hard. She does well in school, she can take care of herself with a part time job, she performs in a band, she models. She has an actual life! Usually characters just have one hobby. One thing that they do, and nothing more. Sonico actually has an interesting life. Sure, there are cliches and the gravure part was cringe-worthy and the preview for the next episode showed that there is no point in watching beyond this first episode, but the creators here delivered a more complex character than a lot of other uninspired series out there. Only because she’s a mascot and therefore cannot be put in a bad light. When such a sell-out actually trumps you, it’s time to start wondering what the hell went wrong.
ED: The CG! It burns!
Potential: 30%

D-Frag!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is forced into a club.
Comedy is hard. Anime can do good ones, however they’re in the vast minority. D-Frag is about a game design club that doesn’t really do anything (well, where have we seen this before?), who need to recruit new members and they reel in this one weird guy. And to be honest: it doesn’t really get better. The whole gimmick of the series is that it’s got weird characters who all have this “element”, like the water girl throws glasses of water around, and the “earth” girl plays with sandcastles. The jokes are all badly delivered, they lack inspiration, they try too hard. I see no potential.
ED: Oh god the terrible vocals!
Potential: 0%