Category: Some Quick First Impressions

Some quick first Impressions: Chousoku Henkei Gyrozetter, Liche Ligtht Club and Kamisama Hajimemashita

by psgels, posted in Kamisama Hajimemashita, Some Quick First Impressions

Chousoku Henkei Gyrozetter

Short Synopsis: Our lead character just got his driver’s lisence.
Before you write this off immediately: this series is written by Dai Sato, directed by Shinji Takamatsu, and has its music composed by Naoki Sato. There’s talent behind this, yo. So did they actually use it, or did this become the mother of all sell-outs? Yeah, pretty much the latter, this was basically just a glorified car commercial whose only merit is its ridiculous premise. I mean usually with these kinds of mecha series, it’s relatively easy to suspend your disbelief because you know, they’re giant humanoid robots. In this series you have 8-year-olds driving cars like they’re pros. Yes, it’s as hilarious as it sounds. You also have to love the scene at the end of the episode, in which the big bad guy looks over his arsenal of identical evil cars, and they all start glowing with these evil head-lights. The rest of this episode was incredibly bland by the way. I wouldn’t bother with it.
OP: Cheesy shounen OP.
ED: Who found it a good idea to rip off the Precure EDs with robots!?
Potential: 10%

Liche Light Club

Short Synopsis: Our lead character kidnaps innocent boys.
Aww. I compiled my preview before finding out that this would just be a 2-minute short with minimal animation. You know, another one of those really bad flash shows. It’s a shame because with a full release this would have made for a killer anime. In its current form… it degenerated into bad SM-jokes. This is supposed to be a horror anime, but it exchanged all of that for jokes that all fall flat. It’s also got waaay to many characters for just episodes of two minutes. There were like 12 different characters, all of them had to be included with their own joke (which by the way also was their only defining character trait). So yeah… this one definitely should have been handed to an actual animation studio.
Potential: 10%

Kamisama Hajimemashita

Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets a supernatural bishie
Yes! Yes! This is more like it. I watched this right after Tonari no Kaibatsu-kun, and this episode just was better in every way. Fiunally, after such a long wait, a genuinely good shoujo romance has appeared. It’s about time. Akitaro Daichi‘s directing is as delightful as ever. And really: I already found Tonari no Kaibatsu-kun’s first episode to be quite funny, but this episode just blew it out of the water with its jokes, and it had me giggling uncontrollably through the entire episode. But what’s even more impressive is how well this was all combined with the drama: this show can go from funny to serious and back in an instant, to the point where there were quite a few scenes in which I was both laughing and feeling sorry for the lead female. The animation is also quite interesting: it’s simple where it needs to be, and fluid where it needs to be. This allowed the animators to create a very dynamic-looking series with quite a small budget.
OP: Quite a typical OP with so many close-ups of the lead female. Catchy song, too.
ED: An ED that actually flows quite seamlessly with the end of the episode. Been a while since we saw one of those, and it helps that it’s a pretty good song here.
Potential: 90%

Some Quick First Impressions: Tonari no Kaibatsu-kun, Hiiro no Kakera 2 and From the New World

by psgels, posted in From the New World, Some Quick First Impressions

Tonari no Kaibatsu-kun

Short Synopsis: Our lead character falls in love with a bishie.
So, there’s lots of shoujo on the start of this series. And really: after so many bad shoujo series, it felt very refreshing to see a show that had a lead female with an actual personality. She has elements of your generic shoujo lead, but she also has elements that are completely different from her peers. Especially her wit was nice to watch. Overall this show knows its comedy: the few comedic scenes are well animated and delivered, as expected of Brains Base. The lead male though… I didn’t like him too much. He’s this incredibly smart character who at the same time is this wild beast who needs to be tamed and on top of that this enigmatic mystery… he’s trying too hard. He feels like four cliches thrown into one character. The romance in this episode was neatly done, in the way that the feelings of the two leads kept changing rather than being bland and one-sided, but for a high school slice of life series, it does need to include more than what it showed here if I want to keep watching it. That’s what you get when choosing an overcrowded genre.
OP: Generic song, generic animation, but that art direction is quite nice.
Potential: 70%

Hiiro no Kakera 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to be protected by cute bishies.
Okay. So last season I made the huge mistake of being too guided by my own ambitions and overlooked the gem that was Kokoro Connect, so even though I dropped Hiiro no Kakera after two episodes in anger, I am going to keep an open mind here. Screw biases! Just see for yourself whether the anime has improved or not… wait a minute… why do these scenes seem so familiar? Why do I get the feeling that I’ve seen this all before… it’s a recap, isn’t it? Seriously, Hiiro no Kakera, you are making it very difficult for me to like you. I mean, a recap is okay and all, but out of all series, does this show really need one? Well, with this episode I at least got a bit of a view of what I missed with the first season, but most of these scenes could just be divided into two categories: characters looking at each other with either a very strange smile or the same sad expression, often romantically charged, and a character looking cool while doing something with power. That’s all! It was incredibly cheesy, but the worst part is that it was incredibly generic. And here is the thing, I used to love the production company behind this series, Studio Deen. In the past, their series stood out due to fantastic characterization. Instantly likable characters. The cast here is inconceivably bland. Everyone is either acting like a stereotype, or just vaguely staring into nothing with that strange smile of theirs. I mean, there is definitely an idea behind that smile: the creators probably wanted to go for something warm with that smile, but they don’t seem to understand how acting really works. You can’t just go for one type of emotion all the time. You have to be dynamic in this. It’s like having hot dogs for dinner every day. On the flip-side: the use of the soundtrack was very good. This episode actually had an atmosphere.
ED: Dull J-rock with uninspired pictures.
Potential: 0%

From the New World

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has psychic powers.
Um, let’s just get this straight first: this series may have children as lead characters, it is most definitely not geared to them. The first scene of this episode shows them using their powers to violently murder a number of people around them. And seriously: this episode rocked. The direction was just fantastic. It really toyed around with its timing, camera angles and narrative in order to create this really intriguing episode. tHe music was fantastic and really well used. And then there was the animation: seriously, A-1 gatherered a number of really talented animators for this show. The characters moved in all sorts of interesting ways. There were a ton of very artistic scenes to spice up this episode as well. I’ts probably a level of quality that they won’t be able to keep up throughout the entire series, but still, this was amazing to watch and the perfect way to open the Autumn Season with.
ED: Catchy song, lazy visuals (it basically is just the promo art and nothing else)
Potential: 95%

Some Quick First Impressions: Ebiten

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

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%

Some Quick First Impressions: Hakuouki – Seimei-Roku, Oda Nobuna no Yabou and Sword Art Online

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

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%

Some Quick First Impressions: Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon II, Dog Days’ and Tanken Drilland

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

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%

HagaSome Quick First Impressions: Hagare Yuusha no Estetica and Natsuyuki Rendezvous

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

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%

Some Quick First Impressions: Joshiraku and Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

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%

Some Quick First Impressions: Moyashimon Returns, Binbou-Gami ga! and Chouyaku Hyakunin Isshu – Uta Koi

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

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%

Some Quick First Impressions: Yuruyuri 2, Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita and Chitose Get You!

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Yuruyuri 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are a bunch of high school girls.
My biggest beef with the first season of Yuruyuri was its bad lesbian jokes, so my biggest concern for this episode was seeing whether those had improved. Having said that, I was not prepared for what this episode threw at me; at all. Here it came out of nowhere and took the lesbian jokes to the absolute absurd by creating a giant harem in which every single is in love with the lead female. It was so obviously a dream, but it did this with such energy that it was consistently funny and enjoyable. In the second half, this episode dropped that whole bit, and showed the cast going to a hot spring resort. Yeah, it suddenly got a lot less funny. My impression of this series is that it wants to be a slice of life series, but just isn’t good at slice of life. The hot spring resort was full of the usual cliches and not interesting at all, and rather than just going full comedy, the pacing just fell apart and the comedy also became completely random unrelated gags that were… nice I guess, but not exactly funny. I chuckled perhaps once or twice during that part, which is way too little for a comedy.
OP: Nice animation, obnoxious J-pop
ED: Bad animation, obnoxious J-pop
Potential: 40%

Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a teacher.
It’s like I feared: Seiji Kishi is a bit of a mis-cast for the director of this series. For a premise like this, you need subtlety. He doesn’t have that. The comedy in this episode just didn’t work because of that: there only was one very funny scene, apart from that it all tried too hard and missed the mark. Having said that though, Jinrui is still very likely going to be the most creative series of the season. This episode was hock full of neat ideas and interesting concepts that went way further than its initial concept of having fairies roam around the world. The lead female also works well as a narrator, ad she’s well written. I just feel like the delivery of all of the voice actors could have been a bit more restrained. Again, learn some subtlety Seiji Kishi, darnit.
OP: That dance…
ED: Best ED of the season so far; nice song plus neat visuals.
Potential: 80%

Chitose Get You!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character likes her big brother.
Urgh, this was bad. These episodes are only 3 minutes long, but here that was enough for this series to get completely on my nerves. The incest jokes are of course one thing, but on top of that this episode was horribly dull, and the female lead has an incredibly annoying voice actress. This perhaps wasn’t as bad as the crappy flash series (of which there actually are none this season!), but this still was completely obnoxious.
ED: Annoying squeaky j-pop.
Potential: 0%

Some Quick First Impressions: Total Eclipse, Rinne no Lagrange 2 and La Storia della Arcana Famiglia

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Total Eclipse

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the student of a mecha piloting girls’ school.
This one was surprisingly better than what I expected. I’m still not quite fond of the premise of having a school that teaches teenaged girls to pilot mecha that deploys them in a war as if there’s nobody better around, but at least the build-up i this episode was solid. This episode took its time to set things up, which is rare for a first episode where the norm is to start with an action-packed opening. On top of that, it treated the war that was going on seriously, but I’m not yet sold on the characters. They’re all so.. bland. A lot of the characters either have no personality or are stereotypes. That definitely needs to improve for this series to become successful.
ED: This vocalist sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Here she doesn’t.
Potential: 70%

Rinne no Lagrange 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to pilot a mecha.
And so, the second season of Rinne no Lagrange starts off with a recap of the first season. Very nice. Granted though, it did fresh up my memory of what the series was about and what made it great. Plus, the side-characters narrating it were fun. So yeah, bring on the real new content next week. There is a ton of potential left for this series, although this season it will have to compete with Eureka Seven.
OP: The same OP as the first season?
ED: The same ED as the first season? Or will the real new OP and ED come next week?
Potential: 85%

La Storia della Arcana Famiglia

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has many bishies to fight for her.
The problem with a lot of the bishie shows is that the characters always try way too hard to look cool. Arcana Famiglia has that too, but I have to give the creators this: out of all the bad bishie series to come out during the past years, this one does hold a candle over them. For once, it does try to be fun and over the top; the chase scene in this episode was stupid and over the top, but had some fun moments, rather than being completely boring like in most of these kinds of series. Having said that though, it’s going to be very hard t make anything out of this series. I mean, these characters are the kind that will get annoying really fast with the way they keep relying on their stereotypes. Plus, whatever happened to making shouo heroines strong and likable? This is yet another show where the entire premise is focused around having all sorts of bishies fight for her.
OP: A dull song with an uninspired direction.
ED: Terrible vocals. Terrible image slide-show. Couldn’t you really find more or better pictures?
Potential: 25%