Category: Some Quick First Impressions

Chuuninbyou demo Koi Shitai

Short Synopsis: Our lead character lives under a cute girl’s apartment.
So, it was tough, but did Chuuninbyou live up to the standards of Hyouka last season? Well… no. This is a show that I’m very likely going to pass up, because Kyoani has pretty much returned to making premises I don’t like again. This episode of Chuuninbyou overall felt redundant: the characters all seem like shallow copies of other Kyoani characters, and the glue that holds them together, the so-called “Chuuninbyou”, or phemomenon that teenagers see themselves as the center of the world, just isn’t strong enough to result to anything interesting. It was mostly used to show the lead female in a lot of cute situations (think like in Kanon), and it lead to some cheesy drama at the end of the episode. The impression I get of this episode that this is a series that focuses a lot on trying to be cute with light humour, and for that it’s just too generic of a romance. Remove the Chuuninbyou and we’ve all seen this before. It’s a shame because the animation is like what you’d expect.
OP: Dull song, but some interesting camera uses.
ED: Very awkward character animation. Also bad J-pop.
Potential: 60%

Monsuno

Short Synopsis: Our lead character can summon a giant polar bear.
The problem with these toy commercials is their entire premise. These things exist just for one thing: promote toys and make them look cool so that kids will start to buy them. The solution that every single one of them revolves around over the top battles that involve either giant robots or monsters that are vaguely related to the toys to sell. The worst part is how incredibly lazy they all are, and Monsuno is pretty much the same. For a show of its kind it does have more action than usual, but that’s not necessarily a good thing because in this way, it just keeps jumping from one action scene to the other without giving the characters any time to flesh themselves out outside of the cliches. The animation is also really bad and jerky. There is one positive thing I can say about this episode though: the music is really good.
OP: Really cheesy 90s opening tune that doesn’t work in the slightest.
ED: Same cheesy style as the OP. Doesn’t work either.
Potential: 0%

Wooser no Sono Higurashi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is this strange rabbit-like creature.
Okay, this was a bit against my expectations. Wooser looks every bit like your average kids’ show, but there is a slight difference: the creators got a bunch of pretty good voice actors and just had them go their way. The result is particularly noticeable with this titular Wooser, who acts completely opposite of what you’d expect in a kids’ show with very bored and biting sarcastic remarks. So yeah, it’s different, yay! Beyond that however, this had very little notable. Yeah, it’s one of those shows that’s inoffensive for one episodes, but that has no real compelling reason to keep watching.
OP: Could have been worse.
ED: This is a song with way too much sugar.
Potential: 20%

Ebiten

Short Synopsis: Our lead character strips innocent girls to their underwear.
So, Ebiten has immediately won the “Worst character-designs of the season”-award (those eyes!), but what about the rest of the episode? Well, I guess it wasn’t that bad. Of course it wasn’t anything amazing, and don’t ask me why that one girl had to be stripped and tied up all the time, but when the characters in this episode started role-playing, things got fairly amusing. Ebiten is a show that thrives on meta-fiction: its set up is similar to the bad parts of Haruhi, and there were a lot of Saint Seiya references in this episode. And not the kind of references that are there for the sake of having references, but they were actively used. I think the best series to compare this with is a Joshiraku minus the wordplay and with a ton of random fanservice added, but unlike Joshiraku the characters were trying to be actual characters, rather than vehicles for the author to show off his sense of wordplay. Does that make up for the fanservice? I dunno? That depends on the next episodes.
ED: Why are you trying to make live-action girls substitute for the characters? It’s not like they look alike or anything; bad use of idols
Potential: 50%

Hakuouki – Seimei-Roku

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a cute guy.
You know, after watching hordes of bishies in Brave 10, Hiiro no Kakera and Arcana Famiglia, it’s at least good to see some of them with actual emotions, rather than one-dimensional stereotypes who keep repeating their own gimmicks. As much as I dislike Hakuouki, I have to admit that out of the bishie series to come out in the recent year,s, it is the most solid. And I have to admit: in terms of storylines this episode had the best plot of the episodes I’ve seen of it so far. It’s a simple but effective story about being indebted to a bad person and the politics around this were solid enough. And what’s more: the single most annoying character, the female lead, was actually nowhere to be found here, which definitely made things more bearable. Yet, Hakuouki, I miss energy. Try to have some passion, because you’re still really boring to follow: put some effort in your delivery and your atmosphere. Make things seem interesting. There are enough tricks for that, but you hardly use any of them. Is this really going to be the future of the shoujo series? In which the best selling entry isn’t really trying?
OP: A decent singer, albeit still a bit dull.
Potential: 50%

Oda Nobuna no Yabou

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has been sucked into his favorite game world. Please… allow me to believe that…
You know Fate/Zero, in which the creators actually turned the famous King Arthur into a female? That was good! The creators made great use of the mysteries behind King Arthur and they made us believe that this was actually pretty plausible. So seriously, what is up with all these incredibly stupid historic gender reversals? In other words: Odu Nobuna no Yabou is the worst TV-series I have seen from Madhouse in the seven years I have done this blog. Yes, even worse that Kamen no Maid Guy, Stitch and Iron Man. Even these series at least had a premise. Even these works had more dignity than this thing in which it makes a complete mockery of history and keeps throwing in the most useless and annoying jokes and moe cliches. I’m not really sure who it was who got the idea to turn Oda Nobunaga into a typical tsundere, nor the guy who found it a good idea to greenlight this. And the bad thing is that the production values are pretty good. they wasted a wonderful soundtrack from Yasuharu Takanashi and the camera work also is pretty good here.
OP: Another OP that is exactly like all other OPs out there.
ED: FANSERVICE
Potential: 0%

Sword Art Online

Short Synopsis: Our lead character plays games.
At the start, I just couldn’t help but compare this to .Hack//Sign (one of my favorite series ever) but already quickly into the episode it turned out that the focus of Sword Art Online would be entirely different. Where .Hack focuses on social interactions, this series is more of a thriller, with its emphasis on the combat aspects of an MMORPG. And yeah, this episode was well made: the characters were well acted and this episode did a good job in outlining the overall concept of this series, without playing all of it trumps right at the start (I like how we’re only introduced to two members of the main cast here). The creators also got some really good background artists for this series, so that also definitely is a plus. Perhaps it’s not .Hack//Sign levels and Yuki Kajiura doesn’t really feel like she’s at her best with this series, but as for this being the most solid fantasy of the season? Yeah, pretty much.
ED: Nice animation, but it misses something, plus the song is bland.
Potential: 85%

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon II

Short Synopsis: Our lead character walks around naked.
Well, this was pretty much what you’d expect: this first episode continues immediately with Horizon’s formula in which the creators pull the most creative and nonsensical powers and plot twists out of their asses, all combined with some really bad fanservice jokes. As much as I’d like the creators to tone things down a bit so that it can focus on what it’s really good at, I can’t deny that this episode wasn’t fun and exciting to watch. The plot itself continues at a pretty steady pace as well, which is also good to see. Yeah, if you like the first season you’ll like this.
OP: This OP also took cues from “how to make a generic OP 101”.
Potential: 80%

Dog Days’

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights a bunch of cats.
Ah, Seven Arcs: you have shown in the past that you know how to take a second season, and have it improve vastly over its predecessor with Nanoha, Sekirei and the big one: White Album. And for this show you also brought in a director I really like, Junji Nishimura, who directed Simoun. Whether that really lead to a better series… I can’t say yet, especially since I didn’t watch the first season. I do have some observations though: the screenplay and animation seem better and crisper. Also, what exactly has happened in the story-department in this series? I mean, I could see quite a few changes in the characters compared to the first episode of the first season, but we’re still at a point in which there’s a war between dog and cat people with overpowered leaders. Does this show actually move anywhere?Other than that, this episode was pretty dull and didn’t really capture my interest, and it felt too much like a copy of what I saw of the first season. A second season should evolve, not stay the same with only slight character variations.
OP: The song for this OP has been pretty much directly copied and pasted from every other generic OP out there.
ED: Generic J-pop with a slide-show.
Potential: 35%

Tanken Drilland

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wields a sword and kills evil monsters.
This.. was actually surprisingly cute. The drawings are very childish, but this is a take back to the classic 90’s fantasy series. what made this stand out was the surprisingly good characterization, rather than having the same band of adventurers, or the same old harem participate as the center of the story. The lead female is acted well, and Toei has put some good effort into making the action-sequences stand out. The big potential pitfall of this series will be placing too much focus on combat. This IS a game adaptation after all, which often favor random combat scenes over everything else, and this episode looked like this series was willing to spend extra time into the characterization, but not the story, because that one really is generic: things are happy, evil comes along and threatens things, the lead party goes on adventuring and fighting evil monsters: it’s all so bland there and this episode gave away no hints that it’s going to deviate from the norm in terms of that, and that will prevent this series to really stand among the greats of the RPG adaptations like Popolocrois.
OP: Cheesy fantasy.
ED: Helium voices with cheesy slide-show and running images.
Potential: 70%

Dakara Boku wa H ga Dekinai

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to have sex.
So, the second of the shows with a really bad premise this season. I can be pretty quick about this: unlike that incest show, this as least does have some impressive production-values to back it up, but that’s all pretty much nullified by this show being a poor excuse for action and porn, and any charm left in this series is completely sapped away by its characters. The male lead is this new type who popped up recently: the pervert who constantly thinks of sex and boobs whenever he’s with a female character and keeps raving on about how he wants to get into a girl’s pants. The lead female is a typical tsundere and the side character is a typical childhood friend. There’s nothing creative or interesting about this show whatsoever on top of all these problems. Yeah this one’s bad.
ED: Bad recap ED with a bland song.
Potential: 0%

Hagare Yuusha no Estetica

Short Synopsis: Our lead character steals the underwear from teenaged girls.
Wll, this is really a series that could have been good, if it weren’t produced by the single worst production company out there: ARMS. Its concept of a world in which it’s normal for people to travel back and forth does have potential, but that’s not really going to work when you throw in some really bad fanservice jokes around, and where every single female is just complete fodder for the male lead. Even the almighty daughter of the demon king needs to be protected by this guy. Granted, this episode was better paced than the usual stuff of ARMS, but that’s like comparing an Uwe Boll flick with an Adam Sandler flick: they’re both still bad.
OP: Unimpressive J-rock with random fantasy images.
ED: Really uninspired images of the lead female. And her boobs.
Potential: 0%

Natsuyuki Rendezvous

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is in love.
With these first impressions, it’s obvious that some episodes make a bigger impresion on me than others. However, it seriously has been a while since an opening episode completely dwarfed all of the other series, especially for a non-sequel. This first episode of Natsuyuki Rendezvous and in particular its acing completely flew out all othe shows so far out of the water. The hints are definitely there that the voices are recorded before the animation, and this gives the voice actors so much more freedom. The voice acting in this episode was incredible and the actors have a huge range, varying between very subtle and restrained to strong voices perfectly. The parts in which two characters were talking to each other also had that flow unique to Matsuo Kou’s series as Kurenai and Red Garden. These characters feel more real than any other characters this season, this show knows when to be funny and how to be funny, and on top of that the animation also really succeeds in bringing the characters to life. Now please: keep this up, because this series can become an incredible romance if every single episode is of this standard.
OP: Gorgeous images.
ED: Wonderful song, and again gorgeous art. Dogakobo, where did you suddenly get all these amazing artists from?
Potential: 100%

Joshiraku

Short Synopsis: Our lead character talks a lot.
Joshiraku: put a bunch of girls into a room and have them talk to each other non-stop about random stuff. I can be very quick about these types of series: I don’t like them. This episode could not hold my attention at all, and this episode just didn’t go anywhere. It was all too static compared to the slice of life series that I do like, like Moyashimon and Poyopoyo in which everyone’s moving around. I will have to give it to this series though: the actual dialogue wasn’t the worst. Compared to your average Shaft or Silver-Link series it was focused and it actually did bother to throw in some characterization and interesting traits of the lead females and as expected from the original writer of Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei, it did play cleverly with language. If you enjoy this genre then Johiraku is something you should check out. If not though, then stay far away, because this isn’t going to make you see the light.
OP: The random images work, but the song itself is boring.
ED: Obviously is trying really hard to be catchy
Potential: 40%

Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has a sister.
The three worst things to base your anime on: porn, incest and turning famous historical figures into girls. This season has managed to produce a series for each of those. “There is a sister among us” is the first of this bunch, and like expected, it is insultingly bad, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this would end up as the single worst series of the entire season. This wasn’t necessarily because of the incest though: that part of the series is so bad it becomes funny, because it attempts to create some bizarre horror show and makes the sister seem like this creepy delusional stalker. No, the problem with this show is just about everything else. It tries to take itself so seriously, with really cheesy romantic music, and yet every characters acts incredibly stupid. This series is an incredibly forced harem, and this episode was filled with the most boring dialogue that according to the hints in the OP and ED only seem to want to lead to getting the female in this show naked. Also, this has the single worst use of a truck I have ever seen. Seriously, it comes speeding right out of bloody nowhere, hits the lead female full frontal without even any signs of slowing down, completely disappears again… and she stands up like nothing happened. GIRL, YOU WERE HIT BY A SPEEDING TRUCK! YOU SHOULDN’T BE ABLE TO STAND LIKE THAT!
OP: Cheesy harem OP = blegh
ED: Okay… if there was any doubt on where the mind of the creators resides… this one cleared that up once and for good…
Potential: 0%

Moyashimon Returns

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a college student.
When the second season of Moyashimon was first introduced, I was glad (obviously, after Guilty Crown), but I couldn’t for the love of me remember why I liked the original series so much. Yeah sure it had a very creative premise and all, but was it really that good? The only thing I could recall was that a cross-dresser appeared halfway through. After watching this episode however, I remember again: this show is fun. This probably sounds really vague, but that’s really the thing: this how is just a bunch of oddballs at college doing various experiments, nothing more. But here is the thing: these creators captured college students. This was hectic, fun and surprisingly educative, and all of the characters are just a whole lot of fun to watch. Noitamina definitely is on a nature streak this half year: first there were fish, now there are germs and flowers, but the series that I see as the biggest parallel is Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita. Overall, Moyashimon has by far better characters, they’re about equal in terms of creativity, but Jinrui gives it the extra edge with its storyline and sense of adventure, and it’ll probably be much more versatile than this series.
OP: Not as memorable when there are humans put in.
ED: This is more like it: if you’ve got a unique gimmick, then make use of it. Good song as well.
Potential: 85%

Binbou-Gami ga!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is very popular and has big boobs.
So this is the big comedy of the season, made by the Sunrise Comedy team, and I must say: I’m very impressed by this episode. This episode had a very good combination between jokes and sad drama, and the jokes themselves were also pretty varied, ranging from slapstick to parodies to references to tsukkomi-boke (someone jokes and someone else yells at him) jokes to hyperactive jokes. This may just have been the first episode, but this was actually really well balanced together. It also helps that the jokes were quite funny, and that the drama focused immediately on the lead female character, so we actually really got to know her in just one episode. My question right now is: how on earth are the creators going to top this? The OP is hinting that it’s going to introduce a large cast of wacky characters, with probably eve3ry episode focusing on one of them. The trick will be to remain fresh on all of them, while still making this about the two lead characters, who both pretty much already played their big trumps into just this first episode. How will the creators solve this?
OP: Generic J-Rock that didn’t impress me.
ED: Lots of random character art.
Potential: 80%

Chouyaku Hyakunin Isshu – Uta Koi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character compiled a bunch of poems together for a children’s card game. And no, he’s not Pegasus.
Okay. This wasn’t what I expected this series to be. I mean, the concept is about the poems of the Karuta game all-right; but before now, all of the historical series based on mature themes all lacked one thing: forced and out of place comedy. And here this episode came with a narrator who talks to the audience as if they are stupid children, and the episode itself threw in these incredibly out of place facial distortions that completely destroyed the mood. On one hand this series tries to be beautiful and artsy, but the facial distortions are completely ugly and badly drawn. So yeah, despite being a romance, this series is not going to end up relying on its characters. Nevertheless, it still has the single best premise of the entire season, and the background behind this series still stands rock-solid: covering the small stories behind the poems of Karuta. This episode covered a whopping two of them, so the success of this series is definitely going to depend on its total picture. And in the meantime, the atmosphere was good. The soundtrack also is the bet of the season so far, so that helps too.
OP: This singer needs a bit more experience; try not singing through your nose. She has potential though.
ED: Why??! OH DEAR GOD WHY!?!?!
Potential: 75%