Category: 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%

The Legend of Korra

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the legendary chosen one.
Allright already! I give in; I’ll watch the first episode of this Avatar sequel. Normally I don’t cover American animation, but with this there were so many people requesting it. My impression is, that it’s indeed a pretty good series based on this first impression. The animation is really good: it is inspired by anime’s level of detail in its art, yet manages to retain the amount of fluidity that’s typical of American animation. There are some cliches in the cast of characters, like the spunky kid in the middle of a dignified Asian-inspired setting, which is quite common in these types of stories, and Korra herself definitely has her annoying moments. I am intrigued however by the politics in this series, although I have no idea what role the main character will end up playing in this. Everyone keeps talking about how she’s special as the avatar, but most of the problems that are presented in this episode don’t really seem like problems that can be solved by someone who just happens to be able to “bend” multiple elements.
ED: Very fast credits. Good music.
Potential: 80%

Ginga he Kickoff

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to found a football team.
Uh so yeah. Don’t ask me why, but we suddenly got treated to the fifth episode of Ginga he Kickoff. As for what happened to the first four… I have no idea. So I just watched the fifth episode of this series, and really, it’s fairly representative of the nature of this series. There were parts I enjoyed. The cast of side-characters is fairly nice. Better than Area no Kishi in any case. It just has one really, really big problem: the main character! Good lord, this kid is horrible. He keeps yelling and whining throughout the entire episode. In this episode he wants a certain person to become the coach of his football team, and do you know how he ends up doing it? By whining and whining and whining until the coach can’t take it anymore. Yes, the parents in the world will be thankful to this series.
OP: Very cheesy J-Pop
ED: Another dull song.
Potential: 10%

Natsuiro Kiseki

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are a bunch of middle school girls.
Okay. I am intrigues. I’m definitely going to keep watching this series. I’m not going to say why; you just need to watch this episode for yourself. Instead I’m going to talk a bit about this episode in general. Natsuiro Kiseki was a series that I really feared would just become another copy and paste moeblob clone. However, the execution is different from your average series. There is actual tension between the characters, and not in the usual clown-straight man pairing, but it feels much more natural than usual. It still has its problems of being way too angsty. There is in particular a blond girl in this show who needs to lay off the angst, because she kept causing drama that could have been solved by proper communication. Despite that though, this series doesn’t feel random, but the characters are actually talking about something. Some characters are a tad cliched (the deadpan girl in particular), but others are actually pretty inspired (the green-haired girl in this show is actually an interesting variation on the “ditzy girl”-archetype).
OP: Dull J-rock.
ED: Dull J-pop (for those who are new to this blog: yes, I kindof dislike these genres)
Potential: 80%

Gakkatsu

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a badly animated teacher
Well, at the very least the utterly horrid flash shows are getting better. Don’t get me wrong, this was still far from good, but it does spend much more time into actually animating its characters and make things move, rather than High Score or Haiyoru Nyaruani which just were a bunch of still frames with moving mouths. These five minutes actually had some decent direction and camera work. The soundtrack actually was energetic, the dialogue was delivered with some actual energy, rather than trying to be as annoying as possible. But yeah, what’s this series about? An overly enthusiastic teacher with strange ideas like trying to rename that bump that some people have on their wrists. There was some nice dialogue in this episode that makes it a good gimmick for one episode, but it’s still got no chance to actually be worthwhile in the long run. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that these shows are actually getting better, but they still have a long way to go.
OP: Surprisingly catchy…
Potential: 10%

Ozuma

Short Synopsis: Our lead character runs into a cute girl.
Clumsy, is how I’d describe this first episode of Ozuma. It definitely doesn’t win points in the build-up or execution. It feels like the characters all read their lines a little too fast, and this show doesn’t seem familiar of the concept of pauses between lines. The animation also is quite poor and I really expected more of Ryousuke Takahashi. On the other hand though, we’ve got a very strong contender for the best character designs of the season (which probably can only be contested by Saint Seiya and Lupin; yes, I know they’re all remakes of past character designs. I can’t help it that most characters look the same nowadays), along with an interesting setting focused on all sorts of desert vehicles. This really is meant as an homage to the Matsumoto Leiji series. This unfortunately means that if you’re not familiar with him, you’ll probably miss a lot here. Despite the flaws though, the end of this episode did give me that vibe I’ve had with some of his other stories. Let’s see whether this one can develop into something interesting in just six episodes, however it really has to fix the poor acting for that. It’s not like every character here is badly acted, but there is some pretty bad stuff among them.
OP: Dull J-Rock
ED: The singing isn’t bad, but the song is a bit boring and it’s just another dull slideshow mostly comprising of only the females in the series. Show some of the guys for god’s sake.
Potential: 60%

Hiiro no Kakera

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a princess who needs to be protected by hot bishies.
Studio Deen has always been the most prominent producer of shoujo series. So yeah, when they decline, it’s no wonder that the entire genre takes a nose-dive. With Hiiro no Kakera they’re basically making the same show yet again. This pretty much is another Hakuouki or Brave 10, only this time things take place in modern times. The bishies here are the same bishies that you see in all those other series. The execution is the same as ever and does very little to entertain. I have to give the series this: it does know how to build up an atmosphere, and at least the writing is better than usual with these series. The animation however…was really bad here. There is movement, but that movement is incredibly awkward. The worst was when one of the characters tried to do a somersault and instead randomly slowly floats into the air for three seconds. That’s also a case of bad direction here: there are no attempts made to make things look better or more interesting than they actually are. The only thing that the graphics have going for them is that the backgrount artists are really good, but that too seems wasted here with this lackluster execution. When was the last time we had a good reverse harem anyway? Yumeiro Patissiere?
Potential: 15%

Smile Precure

Short Synopsis: Our lead character battles against evil bad guys who turn everyone emo.
Do you k now why I love Heartcatch Precure? It’s because it immediately was awesome. Just show someone the first episode, and it’s immediately clear that it is a major step above the others. I mean, I heard that Suite Precure got better as it went along and all. But does that really warrant having to sit through what could be 26 episodes of boring stories and the most moronic bad guy goons ever, just to get to there? And that brings us to Smile Precure. I’ve seen quite a few first Precure episodes over the years, and while this one was nowhere as good as the Heartcatch Precure opening, I still have to say that it makes for the second place here. It unfortunately has a lot of Precure cliches, and the chemistry between the five main characters still consists out of overacting and annoying cliches. But this episode had a great sense of energy. This episode was fun to watch because of that, and the direction was consistently sharp.The character designs unfortunately are generic, but the animation is very good as well, and the music again is of a very high quality here. The big task for the next episode is to give me a reason to continue watching: give me a reason to care about these characters and make them more than just the cliches that they seem to be at first.
OP: Catchy?
ED: Are they ever going to stop doing these godawful CG Precure EDs?
Potential: 70%

Black Rock Shooter

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a regular schoolgirl
This really was an improvement over the OVA, especially in the directional department. One of the big problems with the OVA was how lackluster it was: it was just there, it did nothing to really gain attention, and it really lacked energy. This episode really had energy, and I don’t just mean that in the fight scenes, but the dialogue also was much better delivered. The animators actually started to toy with emotions, which was very good to see. Whether this series will work in the character and story department though is hard to say at this point. I mean, the fact remains that we’re looking at a bunch of schoolgirls, the dullest of which being the lead character who doesn’t seem to have anything that sets her apart aside from liking some coloured bird. The Black Rock Shooter parts are also just as disconnected as in the OVA. The only link pretty much in this episode was that the characters here have their counterpart there. Overall, what hurt this show the most is the target audience it chose. This show would have been perfect as an experimental arthouse project, but the premise still feels too simple and not daring enough. This episode improved in execution, but the basic premise is still exactly the bloody same.
ED: Singing through your nose taking to even further extremes. Yuck.
Potential: 70%

Gokujou

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a loudmouthed high school girl.
Okay… so here we have the series where the producers actually screwed up so badly that they missed the deadline for the first episode. My guess is that the company producing this is really new, and therefore made a number of really bad mistakes during the design process. Surprisingly enough, the actual result wasn’t terribly animated like I feared. There is actually some good movement in this five minute second episode. Where this show completely drops the bomb is the really, really bad acting. The voice actors are trying way too hard; the lead character in particular is yelling through the entire episode. and most of this is either just yelling for the heck of it, or being so obnoxiously loudmouthed that her voice just breaks down. That voice breaking down is especially apparent on one of the side characters here. As for what actually happened in this episode… don’t get your hopes up. The entire episode was about someone getting hiccups and trying to get rid of it. Yes, these guys put some thought into this storyline! There were some weird ideas along the way, but they were more disturbing than funny.
ED: I already forgot what this sounded like.
Potential: 10%

Inu X Boku SS

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has her own servant.
For all series this season I could more or less see what direction they are going into. Not so much with this one, though. This episode ended with “this was the beginning of a long, long time”, and yet it does not look like this will continue for more than one season. Why not? Because only six volumes of the manga have been released so far. Good luck with that ending, guys! It’s very much unlike David Production to release an unfinished series. The reason I’m being so negative here is because out of all the non-sequels that premiered this season, this show had the best characters of them all. It also had the best direction of them all. The lead character? She is well acted and actually managed to carry this whole episode. She’s based on a cliche, but already very early on moved away from it, and actually became quite funny. The rest of the cast has this as well: usually they’d be bad cliches, but there is something about this direction that brings life to these people. The animation was also very good, and surprisingly this was in quite a different way from David Production’s usual animation: this show actually looks crisp and fluid, rather than their usual messy animation. There is fanservice in this show, but for once it feels natural, and not forced down your throat. Or at least not so much compared to the standard of the entire rest of the season…
ED: Dull J-Rock, but that animation is very good.
Potential: 80% (Would have been even higher if this wasn’t such an obvious “I am not going to finish well!”-series)

Thermae Romae

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a roman bath architect.
Yeah, so this was without a doubt the single most unique series of the entire season. Thankfully DLE’s hack-job still didn’t prevent this one from shining. what we have here is a show about roman baths, and on top of that it’s centered on deadpan humour. That really isn’t something that a lot of anime tend to do, even though I really like that kind of humour. Most deadpan humour in anime either misses the point, or isn’t trying to be funny in the firts place. This show is based on such a strange and unusual premise, and thankfully the script can back it up. I can really see how much fun the original manga that this was based on must have been. But yeah, DLE. The thing about animation is that things need to be… animated. The one advantage that this medium has is that things actually move. Not hop around the screen in bad flash transitions. The animation in this show is just plain bad. With this hack-job you could just as well have shown a slide-show of the coloured manga and call it a deal. The one thing I have to give them: they did pick some great music to go with this show. At the very least I can say that this was by far the best thing they ever did. And half a year ago, I never expected to see a show even slightly similar to Hyouge Mono. And yet, while that series is still airing we get another show that’s entirely about a bunch of old guys talking.
ED: Bizarrely enough: the best ED of the entire season.
Potential: 75%

Listen Girls, I am your Father!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live together with a bunch of cute girls.
Urgh. I keep stressing that I like series to focus on a more older cast, just than only teenagers. I know I say that a lot. But when the oldest main character of the entire season is in a show like this, I really make exceptions. This show already stood out as the worst pandering premise of the entire season. Now that I watched this episode, I unfortunately have to say that this show is exactly what it seems at first sight. Only not in the way you first expect it. The weird thing about this episode was that it took an incredibly long time to get anywhere. Most of this episode actually was build up between the lead characters and his friends from college. It really stood out in how dull it was, but with those parts it would have just been a dull average romance. Only near the end of the episode do the lead character’s little nieces start living with him, and it immediately turns into a fanservice fest full of some of the most overdone cliches. That’s where this show really descended from forgettably mediocre to just plain bad. Really, at the very least the largest part of the episode explored who the characters were. But with its true colors really being the way they are… yeah.
ED: Really bland J-pop
Potential: 1%

Dansei Koukousei no Nichijou

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a hyperactive middle schooler.
Now here is a surprise: this show turned out to be quite funny, and I laughed a lot with this episode. The characters all have a good chemistry together, and this episode was a lot of fun. The big question is for how long the creators can make it that way. To me, the characters were often not sure what kind of personality they had, and yet they still remain pretty one-sided and some of the jokes were pretty forced. There also is one very interesting thing about this series: Tomokazu Sugita. This show comes from the director of Gintama, and I have a lot of reasons to believe that he really tried to get Sugita Tomokazu (Gintoki’s voice actor) into this series. The result is that finally we can listen to the wonderful rants of this guy. His over the top rants are just hilarious to listen to. But how the heck did he think that he would get away with playing a middle schooler with that kind of a performance? I mean, I know that there are kids who grow up earlier than others and all, but seriously, something really went wrong when his balls dropped when his voice is this masculine already…
OP: Generic J-Rock
ED: Now this is a very witty way to end a comedy with.
Potential: 75%