Category: Some Quick First Impressions

Some Quick First Impressions: Ladies Versus Butlers, Yanyan Machiko and Chu Bra

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Ladies Versus Butlers

Short Synopsis: Our lead character assaults every cute girl in his school. By accident. On his first day of transfer.
Look. Here’s why I at least gave Chu Bra 20% of potential: it was creative. While it disturbed me, I admit that it made me laugh. It was wrong on so many levels, but at least the creators went with such a crazy idea. Ladies versus Butlers however, has nothing. In fact, it just broke a record of how many cliches and stereotypes you can stuff into one single episode! There is the tsundere princess who immediately falls in love with the lead character as soon as he gropes her, the evil childhood friend, the clumsy maid, walking into someone changing her clothes… blegh, forget it. If I were to summon all of the overused cliches in this episode I’d end up with ten paragraphs, Never once does this show use anything of its own. Everything is just ripped off from a ton of other and often better harem shows. The characters were never able to be something original because the creators kept hanging to these one-sided stereotypes. I love how the creators are trying to make the lead character look smart, simply by making the rest of the cast incredibly stupid. And believe me, the other characters have to be incredibly dumbed down in order to make this guy look good.
Potential: 0%

Yanyan Machiko

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a sheep with kansai-ben accent.
From the creators of Usavich… what happened? Usavich was a fun and brainless action comedy, but this episode was nothing but a girly sheep who kept talking about shaving. And of course I can understand that the creators wanted some variety and that they wanted to try something different… but this episode just wasn’t funny. I didn’t understand any of the jokes, and they all felt way too random and nonsensical to me. In a bad way. The episode was only two and a half minutes long, and I still had to force myself through it.
Potential: 0%

Chu Bra

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is obsessed with underwear – no, that’s not me making fun of this series, that’s really the premise.
I’m really at a loss for words here… This anime is the product of deranged minds, there’s no other way. I knew that there were going to be lots of fanservice series this season, but a show about a panty-obsessed middle schooler was just beyond what I could have feared. The fanservice genre lately has had this trend where they seem to overtrump each other in terms of awkwardness. As much as I’m disturbed by this episode however, I do admit that it was creative, and much better than just another one of those cheesy harems. It’s an incredibly silly show, but I guess that that’s where its charms come from. The direction is weak, though. There are lots of cliches like tripping and falling and the symbolism was just stupid and uninspired in a bad way. And really, how long are the creators going to keep up this premise without repeating themselves?
OP: Very annoying and obnoxious J-pop.
ED: Decent enough J-rock.
Potential: 20%

Some Quick First Impressions: Winter Sonata, Kuchuu Buranko and Kiddy Girl-And

by psgels, posted in Kuchuu Buranko, Some Quick First Impressions

Winter Sonata

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is angsty.
Thank you Meep for pointing towards the first episode of this new series. This time, you should really consider this entry as a “first impression”, because I ended up watching this series in raw Korean despite knowing not a single word of the language (hey, at least in Spanish I know the words for one, two and three). There were subtitles in both Chinese and Japanese, but that too didn’t help me either since my Kanji is terrible. Anyway, my first impression of this episode: really pretty graphics, but the drama was sappy. It’s of course great to see a romance that focuses on actual ADULTS, rather than teenagers, but I would have preferred a bit more slice of life. Perhaps that’s yet to come in future episodes, but the characters were a bit too often staring into nothingness, rather than interacting with each other. However, I do support this series: it’s the very first attempt at a full-fledged Korean TV-series. If this can be the doorway to more and interesting premises that set themselves apart from both anime and western animation, then it’s definitely a good thing.
Also: Irony. There are a few English-speaking characters in this series. The good news: the creators actually hired properly English speaking people to voice them. The bad news: the creators still screwed up by miscasting a 30-year-old woman as a 10-year-old girl. She sounds like a strange witch now!
OP: Sappy love ballad. Not my style.
ED: Decent ballad. A nice way to end every episode.
Potential: 50%

Kuchuu Buranko

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is stressed out.
What is up with the raw providers this season? First Aoi Bungaku and now this. Are they allergic to shows that don’t focus on cute teen-aged girls or something? Anyway, Kuchuu Buranko… yeah. What is there really to say? It’s really an experience, and an awesome one at that. It’s full of the weirdest animation techniques, surreal art styles, and the direction keeps changing from one mood to the other. It’s really just a game of “let’s play psychologist”, with a different case looked upon during every week. With the best sense of humour of the entire season, I’m loving this series already. 🙂
OP: Heck, this is actually a really good song. Simple, but not annoying, and the strings int he background really work.
ED: Yeah, the best ED of the season. Funky, catchy and a great way to close off this series.
Potential: 100%

Kiddy Girl-And

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a teen-aged maid who kicks bad guy ass.
Wow, Satelight sure is busy this season. With four shows, they’re definitely the most represented in this season. While last season, they produced some of the best-looking shows of their seasons, this time… not so much, and all of their shows look pretty generic on the outside. The epitome of this… is Kiddy Girl-And: yet another moe action comedy in which teen-aged girls have kick the ass of various bad guys. But what about the execution? Unfortunately, this also is pretty generic. The female lead is incredibly annoying to listen to; her voice actress keeps yelling and yelling, hoping to make an impact. The scenario also keeps hanging too long around panty-jokes. The gimmick of this show seems to be quirky and over the top action-scenes, but even they fail to stand out. While they’re nicely animated (especially for Satelight: for once the animation wasn’t rushed at all), but the direction lacks any sort of creativity.
OP: Obnoxious J-Pop. Do not like.
ED: A bit better, but still with that obnoxiously cute J-Pop voice.
Potential: 0%

Some Quick First Impressions: Gokyoudai Monogatari, Thriller Restaurant and Himitsu Kessha Taka Tsume Countdown

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Gokyoudai Monogatari

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters live together while their parents are away in America.
Well, I guess that not all kids’ shows can be surprisingly good this season. Gokyoudai Monogatari could indeed have been a cute story about two very young siblings (my guess would be that they’re both six or seven or something), if it wasn’t for the completely nonsensical scenario. Let alone that two kids that age are fully taking care of themselves, but the entire episode was full of the most ridiculous situations that didn’t make any sense at all: in the first half of this episode the lead duo gets chased by some sort of evil camera crew for no possible reason, while in the second half the boy gets chased by some sort of angry dog. Everyone really behaves in a completely implausible fashion that I guess is trying to be funny, but fails completely in the process. It gives off the impression of being rushed, and that the creators didn’t really think through the script. Catchy soundtrack, though.
OP: Nice enough. Surprisingly well and fluidly animated.
ED: This is the type of song that the kids who watch this today are going to hate once they grow up.
Potential: 0%

Thriller Restaurant

Short Synopsis: Our lead character visits a supposedly haunted restaurant building.
I must say, the kiddie shows this season are surprisingly good. This obviously is compared to most other kids’ series out there and I don’t mean in the way of the WMT, but in the same way I’d much rather watch an episode of Thriller Restaurant or Kiruminzoo than Fairy Tail, for example. If I had kids and this somehow got translated I wouldn’t mind showing this to them, because it’s a pretty nice horror-series for kids: it has a surprisingly good soundtrack, it knows how to build-up. It’s got a small touch of Japanese culture, and you can see that some actual creativity went into it. It’s not perfect. At a certain time one of the lead characters got possessed in too much of a Gakkou no Kaidan way. In essence, it’s just another grade school adventure, but if you compare it to some of the other shows that kids have to sit through these days, and it definitely stands among the better ones.
ED: Ghost disco… yeah. My biggest surprise is that it’s actually surprisingly good, especially considering the crap music that gets marketed towards kids these days…
Potential: 30%

Himitsu Kessha Taka Tsume Countdown

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is trying to take over the world.
Well, I guess that we’ve found the worst show of the season with this show. Here they take a series that would have been best as another one of those 3-minute series, and stretch it over 20 minutes of them. The show basically talks about two story-lines: one consisting out of strange shapes with stereotypical personalities who fight crime for no possible reason, and the second is about some sort of evil organization that’s trying to take over the world for no possible reason. The end result is an endless string of pointless and unfunny dialogue combined with the worst possible animation that I have ever seen. It’s trying too hard to be funny, it’s full of randomness just for the sake of randomness, and feels like a really half-assed attempt at creating an anime.
OP: Really dull J-pop, but at least there’s a nice visual direction.
ED: One of the only things about this series that doesn’t suck. At least there’s creativity here.
Potential: -70%

Some Quick First Impressions: Fairy Tail, Aoi Bungaku and Table Cat

by psgels, posted in Aoi Bungaku, Some Quick First Impressions

Fairy Tail

Short Synopsis: Our lead character destroys entire cities and ruin thousands of people’s lives with his powers. And is supposed to be the good guy…
Well, so here we have another one of those shounen fighting series. And to be honest, it feels like a rather half-assed attempt. You can really see that the creators are trying too hard for this one: at every single opportunity they get they try to be funny by an incredibly exaggerated facial expression. Some of those attempts are indeed funny, but in most of the cases they just lack comedic timing, feel lazy or just aren’t funny. The lead character also feels like any other 14-year-old shounen lead out there, without hardly anything that sets him apart. As for the fights, they mostly consist out of people throwing flashy beams and punches at each other until one party goes down. I’ve gotten bored of those ever since Bleach abused them. Right now, I’m a bit done with those shallow shounen series.
OP: Decent J-rock, but nothing special.
ED: Bad j-pop song.
Potential: 20%

Aoi Bungaku

Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets the love of his life as he runs away from the police.
Ah, yes. It’s obvious that this is going to be the least popular series of the season. I suspect that this series mostly going to be ignored, if Mouryou no Hako’s reception last year is any indication. It’s going to surprise me if there are actually subbers going to be interested in this series. Nevertheless, this series has the best character-designs of the new season, it has the best atmosphere of the new season, it has the best graphical direction, the most complex and difficult to understand script, and very much my favourite first episode of the Autumn Season. I love the way how it slowly plays out, with the atmosphere only getting bigger and bigger as it goes on. It’s about adults, rather than a bunch of teenagers, and the fanservice for once feels mature, rather than stupid like most other series this season. I really like the concept of animating six short stories inside one series: it’s going to provide variety, and make sure that the series is never going to drag. If I had to describe this episode, it’d be Kurozuka minus all of the freakish action and plus some actually good characterization. It’s taken a while, but I’m really glad to see another interesting concept from Madhouse!
ED: Nice ballad.
Potential: 90%

Table Cat

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are a bunch of talking cats and dogs.
Okay… this is the perfect example of “so annoying it becomes funny”. I think that anyone who watched this episode wanted to kill that freaking poodle. Her voice actress just would not shut up. In fact, this entire episode (three minutes, okay) was full of the most hyperactive dialogue since the Excel Saga, combined with some really weird and spastic animation techniques. However, I can’t deny that I laughed. 😛
OP: Very cheesy and pointless for an anime with only three-minute episodes.
ED: Again, just a cheesy song that takes fifteen seconds…
Potential: 20%

Some Quick First Impressions: Cheburashka Arere, Darker than Black: Ryuusei no Gemini and Sasameki Koto

by psgels, posted in Darker than Black - Ryuusei no Gemini, Some Quick First Impressions

Cheburashka Arere

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a monkey that starts living with a crocodile.
Hmm, the kiddie-shows this season are surprisingly good. I wouldn’t exactly recommend Chebrashka to any adult, but for once we have a series that tries to be different from all the other kiddie shows out there. It’s actually a bit nostalgic, as it seems similar to the kiddie shows that I watched when I was only five years old (most notably, Barbapapa). One thing that especially strikes me is how good the animation is. The character-designs are simple, but they move really fluidly with hardly any corners cut. Interesting.
OP: Just a title screen, but original music.
ED: Very obnixious to anyone older than five.
Potential: 20%

Darker than Black: Ryuusei no Gemini

Short Synopsis: Our lead character stopped getting haircuts.
It was quite a surprise to see that this first episode focused on mostly completely new characters, but yeah: this was the best first episode of the new season. It’s got the intriguing setting of the Book of Bantorra with a solid and intelligent execution that can’t be matched by any other series this season. The characters are well written, the attention to detail to the origami was a very nice touch, and the battles still rely much more on wits and intelligence than raw power. This episode really showed that Bones didn’t make a sequel just to milk out this franchise, but they’re really intending to give it some more depth. It’s a shame that there are only going to be 12 episode, but on the other hand that’s going to make this series short and sweet. 2009 really looks like it’s going to be Bones’ best year ever.
ED: Solid albeit uninteresting ballad with a slide-show of random landscapes.
Potential: 90%

Sasameki Koto

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a lesbian.
Sasameki Koto: a tad shallow, but definitely charming. This episode was one of the most emotional first episodes of the new season for me, because it was the best at combining subtlety and straight to-the-point drama. The soundtrack fits this romance series very well, and the atmosphere was pretty nice for this story. But yeah, that shallowness is going to become a problem for this series in the future. The dialogue felt not really very inspired, and the characters were a little too quick to cry. Nevertheless, after Aoi Hana with its mountains of subtlety, it might be worth watching a more direct lesbian series.
OP: A nice and calm song, although definitely not the best of its kind.
ED: A bit too annoying and poppy song.
Potential: 50%

Some Quick First Impressions: Kimi ni Todoke, 11Eyes and Kobato

by psgels, posted in Kimi ni Todoke, Kobato, Some Quick First Impressions

Kimi ni Todoke

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is that scary girl from Hyakko. No seriously, the two are introduced with exactly the same examples!
Ah, finally we have a series that goes with its own art style, instead of one that has been copied from a thousand other series already. That’s definitely a plus. Kimi ni Todoke is a shoujo-series, which you forced me to blog back here. Overall, compared to the first episodes of other shoujo-series, it doesn’t really stand out: the humour hardly got any chuckles out of me and the set-up is pretty basic. However in this season it really has been the best teenaged romance so far. with those standards it’s of course not that hard to achieve this, but the female lead is nice to watch, and doesn’t feel like a stereotype at all. There’s a nice bit of drama that doesn’t try too hard and has a sense of subtlety, and overall it was pretty nice. Although the creators really need to work on making that male love interest less perfect, because right now it’s nothing more than your average shy girl’s fantasies of dating the hottest and most popular guy in school.
OP: Nice art, but the song is standard J-pop that doesn’t interest me.
ED: Nice albeit a bit dull, ballad.
Potential: 50%

11Eyes

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets woken up every morning by his childhood friend.
I swear, I’m getting dejá vus from all of these moe shows this season. This feels like the umpth time I’ve seen fanservice, childhood friends becoming lovers, obnoxious classmates and generic moe character-designs. Nevertheless, for these first impressions I mostly look at the execution, and for this series it actually rocked. The slice of life scenes were still pretty dull and cliché, but whenever this series gets serious it gets dark and brutal, and the creators are immediately able to switch from a light and boring atmosphere to a very tense and dangerous atmosphere with a small touch of horror and mystery, and I really have to praise this series for that. Now all that remains is to wonder whether the creators can keep this up, and whether this show has a premise that can really get the best out of this direction. Agh, I have no bloody clue!
OP: Actually one of the best OPs this seasons. Energetic, varied and fast-paced, fitting the dark mood of this series.
ED: Again, a very nice track that nicely ties in with the cliff-hanger.
Potential: 50%

Kobato

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has to help other people.
After watching X, this was about the last thing I expected from the next Madhouse Clamp series: a cute shoujo series. And granted, the lead character Kobato is sickeningly cute. There’s a nice dynamic between her and her stuffed animal side-kick what made this episode worth watching. However, the side-characters felt rather flat and one-dimensional. Seeing as this is going to be a series that’s going to focus on Kobato helping out other persons, it’s going to be a bit pointless if the creators can’t create engaging characters for Kobato to help. In this aspect, Miracle Train did it much better. Kobato also was portrayed a bit too angelic during this episode: she can somehow take the worst ingredients and make a delicious dish out of it, she can sing perfectly, etc. Nevertheless, it’s an enjoyable episode and knowing Clamp, at least you can be sure that the characters are going to be developed as the story goes on but based on first impressions both Clamp and Madhouse have done better in terms of cuteness.
OP: Standard J-pop song that didn’t catch my interest.
ED: Quiet song that again didn’t catch my interest.
Potential: 50%

Some Quick First Impressions: Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu 2 – Purezza, Anymal Tantei Kiruminzoo and Shin Koihime Musou

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu 2 – Purezza

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to date the most popular, perfect and rich girl in school.
And yere we have yet another moe show: Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu’s continuation. I’m not really interested in all of the otaku-ish hobbies, but I figured that I might as well give this show a second chance to get me interested, but ultimately it didn’t. By far my biggest problem with this episode was that the many attempts at comedy were shallow, not funny and often downright atrocious, a problem I have with a lot of the moe shows this season. As for the romance, I admit that that part was pretty cute. The love triangle is just a copy of any other love triangle out there, but the romance between the lead character and Nogizaka Haruka, despite cliché, was pretty cute. Though I don´t really think it was cute enough for me to keep watching this…
Also on a side-note: is Japan really such a xenophobic place in which you get immediately labelled as loser in middle school when they find out that you like watching cartoons? Strange country.
OP: A bit of a mock opening of Haruka’s favourite show, but did the creators really have to go with something so cheesy?
OP2: I remember how the OP of the first season was abysmal, so this is a very good improvement. Catchy J-Rock and an inspired visual style.
ED: Way too cheesy and badly sung J-Pop.
Potential: 10%

Anymal Tantei Kiruminzoo

Short Synopsis: Our lead character can transform into cute and fluffy animals.
So yeah, this is a series aimed at kids. Just about everything in this show is designed to be as cute as possible, and it revolves around the premise of a bunch of kids searching around in their parents’ attic and finding a bunch of magical thingies that transform them into mahou shoujo. But really, for a kid’s show it’s actually not that bad at all. For once we have kid’s show that actually not as cheaply written as possible. The two characters are likable, and the episodes played out quite natural. What especially struck me is the surprisingly good soundtrack. This is probably a good series for the Shugo Chara-fans who have been turned off by how it jumped the shark with Party! As for the rest of this series, it could be a fun, relaxing series. If we are to believe the title, the girls are going to use their powers as detective. I guess that has promise as a light watch.
OP: It will never leave! It will never leave!
ED: Korean vocals, of all things, and again just too catchy.
Potential: 30%

Shin Koihime Musou

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a “honorable warrior” in ancient China.
It’s series like Koihime Musou that ruined any chance of me, being able to take the Romance of the Three Kingdoms-saga seriously. One of the classic Chinese novels? It’s probably going to remain in my mind as a series of very stupid and girly stories you can only laugh at. This sequel of Koihime Musou seems to do exactly the same as its predecessor: it’s here to deliver cute girls, more cute girls, and in between even more cute girls. I doubt that I’m going to continue watch this one since it’s really not my type of genre, but if you like moe and boobs doing nothing you’ll probably enjoy the slice of life in this series. It’s just too stupid for me with little else that caught my attention, and in that it didn’t really seem to have changed from the first season.
OP: Spunky OP. Not exactly something I want to listen to again, but definitely not among the worst this season.
ED: Too much sugar and squeaky voices.
Potential: 20%

Some Quick First Impressions: Sora no Otoshimono, Miracle Train and Natsu no Arashi! Akinai-Chuu

by psgels, posted in Natsu no Arashi, Some Quick First Impressions

Sora no Otoshimono

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets his own god-mode android angel servant.
Well hello… fanservice. Well, at least this shows knows its target audience, but it still puzzles me why they don’t just turn these concepts into hentai-series. Here we have a series in which an android angel servant falls from the sky, and the lead character just happens to be at the right time and place to have her bump into him so that she makes a contract with him and fulfills every of his wishes. The guy is your typical teenager, so you can imagine how he ends up abusing these powers. The series has the typical flaws of a harem-series: lots of clichés (he gets woken up by a cute childhood friend, there’s a huge magical sakura tree near where they live, et cetera), pointless fanservice and a male lead of who you wonder why he’s even popular with girls. I think the biggest flaw of this series is the lead character himself. Sure, there have certainly been worse versions of him, but his attempts at being funny just end up as annoying and his voice-acting is pretty annoying to listen to. I liked the white-haired guy, but overall this is just a waste of a perfectly good budget.
ED: I presume that the animation is going to be filled in the next episode. The song is nothing special, but not particularly bad.
Potential: 10%

Miracle Train

Short Synopsis: Our lead character tries to help troubled ladies along with his team of bishies.
Aha, Iyashi-kei! It’s been a while since we had one of those. This episode really had that typical calming atmosphere of the Iyashi-kei series, but at the same time it also has a lot of issues. Most notably, the bishies. I like the idea of personified subway stations helping passengers through their worries, but did they really have to look like a bunch of ugly bishies with ridiculous hairstyles? Most of the time they’re acting like stereotypes as well, especially that yellow-haired guy was obnoxious. Especially the scenes in which they talk to each other are cringe-worthy. Nevertheless, when push comes to shove it does manage to pull off a nice down-to-earth story for the troubled passengers. If the future episodes can focus more on those passengers and less on the bishies, we could have something very interesting here.
OP: Cheesy J-rock. Move on.
ED: Slightly better, but still generic J-rock
Potential: 50%

Natsu no Arashi! Akinai-Chuu

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is surrounded by lots of cute girls.
Like White Album, I’ve been heavily debating whether or not to blog the second season of Natsu no Arashi. Sure, the first season was very good, but this is Shinbo, after all. No matter how good the source material, I have this feeling that he’s going to take its style to extremes again while forgetting what’s really important. And really, it didn’t help that this episode was probably the worst of the entire series. It was a beach-episode, but the thing is that it just wasn’t funny. The whole episode was just a string of random fanservice-jokes, and lacked the wit or subtlety from the first season. Among the rest of the jokes were also lots of recycled ones (the creators are still going on about Hajime vs Jun, the salmon-thing returned yet again and the creators were even desperate enough to recycle a joke from Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei and the Samurai-Jokes from Pani Poni Dash!). Sure, this series might pick back up, but this episode just showed too many signs that the creativity of Shinbo has run out, and I don’t want to blog this series just for the sake of finding out whether I’m right or not in this. Also, why the heck are the creators hinting at a romance between Jun and Hajime?!
OP: Like expected from Shaft, at least it has a pretty good OP. Creative visuals and nice music.
Potential: 30%

Some Quick First Impressions: Yumeiro Patissiere, Inu Yasha – Final Act and Tentai Senshi Sunred 2

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Yumeiro Patissiere

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to become a Patissiére.
Oh dammit. With a title as “Yumeiro Patissiere”, I was instantly reminded of series as Ristorante Paradiso, Antique Bakery and Bartender: mature series that for once focus on people with actual jobs, rather than teenagers or holy warriors or something. So yes, I was looking forward to this. And then it turns out to be a cheesy shoujo-series; what a disappointment. But yeah, it’s fair enough: there are so many shoujo series in which the lead character is a huge glutton, so it was only a matter of time before one would pop up that would focus entirely around this, and this episode did a nice enough job of introducing the concept, getting the lead character introduced and motivated to start making cakes and beg her parents to transfer to a cake making school. However, the lead character is really just a typical shoujo-lead with absolutely nothing that sets her apart, the live-action parts at the end were absolutely horrible, and what worries me the most: what the heck is going to be the role of these fairies that appear in the OP? Please don’t tell me that they’re going to Deus ex Machina the female lead to be the best patissiére in existence.
OP: Too! Much! Sugar!
ED: Annoying music with annoying dancing fairies.
Potential: 20%

Inuyasha – Final Act

Short Synopsis: Our lead character still isn’t done fighting evil spirits.
Well, this series jumps right into the action, doesn’t it? This really is typical Sunrise: it’s here to deliver some action, action and more action. I haven’t seen the original series, but I guess that it’s this fast pacing that made it so popular among the younger crowd. Overall, while this episode was full of techno-babble (or magic-babble, in this case), there were some nice themes in this story. The action, as abundant as it was, failed to make impact, though: it’s just a bunch of people throwing powers at each other, and lacked any sort of build-up. The attempts at comedy also failed. Overall though, it’s definitely not the worst, but I cringe at the thought of having to sit through 100 episodes of this.
OP: Standard J-rock, doesn’t stand out, with a typical shounen-esque visuals.
ED: Half the vocals feel like a mis-cast in what could have been at least a decent J-pop song.
Potential: 30%

Tentai Senshi Sunred 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights evil.
Hell yeah! I’ve been anticipating this series, and it doesn’t disappoint. I’m glad that I gave this series a second chance, because it’s really pulled the best out of its concepts, without any signs of it getting dull. Sunred still is an awesome male lead character, in the way that he ‘s just about the complete opposite of your average superhero. The thing with this series is that it’s so frighteningly realistic at times, which really contrasts with the incredible stupidity of the villains when they challenge Sunred for the umpth time, simply because they feel like they should carry out their duties as an evil organization. My big fear is of course that curse that seems to plague a lot of comedy-sequels: preventing the humour from getting dull. Still, if any series is able to do it, it’s this one. The director has plenty of experience with hilarious series, and with Sunred he finally seems to have gotten the hang of how to properly use drama.
OP: Very catchy and not in a bad way at all. Great intro for this series.
OP2: Why the hell are there two OPs? Music is a bit less, but the visuals are subtle and funny and fully reflect what this series is about… sortof.
ED: Not as good as the first ED, but still a nice sentimental way to end such a strange series. Best ED of the season so far.
Potential: 70%

Some Quick First Impressions: Letter Bee, The Sacred Blacksmith and Shugo Chara! Party!

by psgels, posted in Letter Bee, Shugo Chara, Some Quick First Impressions

Letter Bee

Short Synopsis: Our lead character delivers packages and fights monsters.
Usually, series have a tendency to start out with a bang. Letter Bee however, is different, and instead very much takes its time. The scope of this episode is very limited: we just see three characters: a postal worker with a magic gun, a kid who lost his parents, and the postal worker’s dog. This episode progresses very quietly as the two of them meet and travel together, learn to deal with their differences, and explore each other’s problems (a very convenient power of the lead character seems to be that when he uses them, anyone can look into his heart). So yeah, because of that this wasn’t the most exciting episode of the new season, but if it picks up in the future it could be something interesting. The storytelling was solid, the characters are all fleshed out. Now all that’s left is the creators, making use of this.
OP: The song has nice vocals but fails to stand out otherwise, visuals are pretty basic foreshadowing.
ED: Again an impressive singer, but not really an impressive song.
Potential: 60%

The Sacred Blacksmith

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a rather incompetent teen-aged warrior.
Ah, I hate it when these series come that can really go anywhere. This series has absolutely gorgeous graphics and monster-designs, a snappy direction that really brings the best out of the different sword-fights that for once aren’t just focused on just slashing swords around, but also concentrate on the quality of each weapon. The characters are far away from stereotypes as well, and seem to have well-motivated back-stories. But yeah, on the other hand the lead character remains a moe teen-aged tsundere, and her love interest is a genius swordsman and blacksmith, despite also being a teenager. While on one hand, the lead character strikes me as an ambitious girl who takes initiatives, there’s also so much potential for this to turn into yet another one of those generic fantasy-series that never really goes anywhere, where she’s stuck as the eternal damsel in distress that always needs to be saved. The execution really rocks, but if the rest of the story doesn’t go anywhere then it’s just a waste to put such a powerhouse as Manglobe behind this series.
OP: Mostly just standard J-Pop with cheesy Engrish parts thrown into it.
ED: Again very generic J-Pop and the animation attempts to be cute but ultimately isn’t.
Potential: 60%

Shugo Chara! Party!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets bugged by an overmoralistic elementary schooler.
I figured that I might as well check out what became of the extremely fillerish series that I once considered as something with potential, but oh my god. WTF have they done with this series!? The creators successfully brought the target audience down with six years with this episode, this now has turned into a series that you show to four-year olds. The entire first half of this episode was nothing more than the voice actresses for the different cute mascots of this series as they “attempted” to talk to their audience throughout the TV. Heck, Sesame Street is more mature than this… thing. The second half was actually animated, but there too you can see that the creators are going for an entirely different target audience this time, when they introduce an elementary schooler who is probably going to hog Amu’s place as a lead character with her powers to talk to X-Eggs. I disliked this series for having too many fillers, but this is a treatment that it definitely doesn’t deserve!
OP: THE proof why live-action should stay FAR away from anime. Cheesy J-pop at its worst.
ED: The live action! It burns! At least the song didn’t.
Potential: -50%