Category: Some Quick First Impressions

Some quick first Impressions: Sora no Manimani, Spice and Wolf II and Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

Sora no Manimani

Short Synopsis: Our lead character joins the local astronomy club and falls in love.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (Nope)
Ah, dammit. Just when I thought that this Summer Season did so well in avoiding the biggest cliché in the book (the childhood friend), Sora no Manimani comes around, in which the lead character moves to his new high school and runs into the girl he hung out with when he was six, and the two of them nearly instantly fall in love again. So this episode definitely had its boring moments since I’ve seen so many first episodes with the EXACT SAME premise, but thankfully there are a bunch of twists here: for once the male is the tsundere, instead of the female, while the female has ADHD and feels a lot like Haruhi Suzumiya without the tsundere part. This episode had its amusing parts, but it lacked proper build-up: the crying scenes really came from out of nowhere and felt forced and with such an excellent season, I really doubt that I’m going to continue with this one.

Spice and Wolf II

Short Synopsis: Our lead character looks for his next dal to make him some money.
Chance of me Blogging: 10% (Too many great shows this season!)
Ah, it’s nice to see this one back. Spice and Wolf was the big surprise in the season in which it originally aired, because it came from absolutely nowhere, it had the most incompetent staff imaginable and yet it turned out to be such a solid series. What I’m expecting from the second season is much of the same subtle charms that made the first season so enjoyable. My big fear is that it’s going to let its success go too much to its head, go too much in the mainstream direction and become an unsubtle romantic comedy and moe fest. Ah well, we’ll see in which direction it’s going to go, and this episode was enjoyable as one that set up the upcoming arc. It was nothing special, but the first season also started out rather underwhelming, so it’s nothing to be surprised of. My one complaint of this episode is that even though it’s got a much more superior animation company (Brains Base, of all things), the animation cut a lot more corners: there were lots of pointless flashbacks just to recycle some of the used animation of the first season, so I do hope that the creators have saved the rest of the budget for later episodes.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

Short Synopsis: Our lead character ends up in the middle of an earthquake.
Chance of me Blogging: 100% (Sounds very promising)
And so the next Noitamina series appears. It’s pretty similar to Eden of the East, actually: it’s set in the current day, it’s very realistic, it too criticizes Japanese society subtly and it too has high production-values. Both series have something that’s very rare in anime nowadays: a storyline that’s based on actual topics of today’s society. Production IG already did such a series with Real Drive, but for Bones it’s something totally new. Or should I say, for Studio Kinema Citrus, as they seem to be the main ones responsible for this series, much like Trans-Arts who like to slap the Production IG label on their work. In any case, this first episode was very promising. It’s easy to think that you’re never going to get hit by such a disaster, but what if it does happen? It doesn’t just go for Tokyo, but what if New York was suddenly flooded (which did happen in the past), or what if the oceans continue to rise, and half of The Netherlands ends up drowning? Great food for thought, and the creators chose a likable lead female to center this story around. Usually Noitamina is about adults, but in these days in which teenagers are growing up more and more spoiled by technology and conveniences, she is indeed more suited. I’ll stop rambling now, otherwise this entry is going to get too big.

Some quick first Impressions: Princess Lover, Kanamemo and GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class

by psgels, posted in GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class, Some Quick First Impressions

Princess Lover

Short Synopsis: Our lead character… wait, can’t you guess by the title?
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (No way in hell)
I mean, with a title as Princess Lover, is there anything else you can expect from this series? This premise is so blatantly obvious, it definitely has been the worst show of this new season for me. We have this guy whose father and busty mother get killed, he then manages to save a busty princess with the most pathetic security team ever, he also gets picked as the heir of a rich businessman with a busty maid and gets engaged to a busty noblewoman who is also a tsundere and excellent at sword-fighting. Granted, this series has a big budget, but aside from that it’s just another one of those harems with every cliché possible thrown into it, it’s full of jiggling breasts and the creators also couldn’t resist to throw in some of the most overused boob-jokes. There hardly is anything original or creative, and it just feels like just another Zero no Tsukaima. This is SO not my kind of series.

Kanamemo

Short Synopsis: Our lead character loses her grandmother and starts working at a newspaper store.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (No way in hell)
Ah, I guess that this is where the bad shows this season went to. At first sight it may seem like an interesting premise for a slice of life show: a bunch of girls working at a newspaper store, just living their lives and bringing around newspapers for their daily jobs. Unfortunately, the execution sucks; in the end it turned into just another generic and badly written series with too much moe. The big problem with this series is something that Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou managed to avoid so well: it’s too forced. The creators striked me as if they were really desperate to be funny, so they threw in just about every joke they could think of. This leads to a couple of amusing situations, but mostly just forced jokes that were taken from other series and just aren’t funny, like the drunk girl who keeps groping everyone, or the klutzy girl who keeps crashing into everyone, or the shoujo ai, and let’s not forget the six year old girl who somehow is more mature than all of the other characters combined. If you’re one of those people who hates moe with passion, then stay faaaaar away from this one. If you have no problems with moe… then there are still much better series this season.

GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class

Short Synopsis: Our lead character follows art design classes.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (Not in this season)
There really is lots of moe this season; in fact, every series has had it so far. Still, in this case I don’t really mind: the previous seasons have already shown us a wide variety of mature series, and the series this season are a welcome change of pace, and surprisingly good at times as well. Just do expect me to start whining when this trend continues in the upcoming Fall season… In any case GA is another one of those moe slice of life shows, but thankfully unlike Kanamemo it’s really enjoyable. It’s actually a series that hits quite close to home for me, because this series discusses the power of signs, which happened to also be a subject that I followed in a Visual Design class that I followed about half a year ago. Aside from that though, this series stands out in its creativity: there’s always something going on that doesn’t feel copied from every other moe series (not even Hidamari Sketch, which also was about art students). Out of all the series that premiered during this season, this one made me laugh the most due to a few priceless scenes. My only problem with this series is that silent blue-haired girl: her voice-actress feels like a bit of a one-trick pony. I feel like I’ve heard the exact same voice in fifty other shows, with the EXACT SAME personality. That really gets boring after a while.
Edit: ah, the director of Les Miserables, Cromartie High School, Kodomo no Omocha and Digi Charat. This guy is a true eccentric that can really take the best out of this series

Some quick first Impressions: Element Hunters, Canaan and Zan Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei

by psgels, posted in Canaan, Some Quick First Impressions

Element Hunters

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters travel to another world and hunt monsters.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (Nope)
Well, so finally we have a bad series again. Element Hunters is an attempt to bring back the parallel world children’s adventures genre (like Digimon, Flint the Time Detective and others), but in the end it’s just lazy and uninspired. Basically we have a bunch of kids who travel to some parallel world with chemical element themes, but the reason why they end up there is virtually non-existent: from out of nowhere, they just run into a gate that transports them, and from out of nowhere they just start fighting some weird monsters like they’ve been doing since they were three. While I admit that the characters have their charms and nice voice actors, but that’s also the only thing that’s inspired about this episode. Also, for a series about chemistry this episode also showed that the creators know absolutely nothing of their subject: this episode was about nitrogen, and instead of discussing its practical uses, or the fact that 80% of the air we breathe consists of it, the only thing it can think of is some weird nitroglycerin flowers. I mean, seriously? This series is in every single way inferior to that other science show that’s currently airing (Marie & Gali).

Canaan

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters kills a bunch of people during a big festival
Chance of me Blogging: 70% (Choosing the shows to blog this season is going to be HELL)
As if this season didn’t already have enough awesome shows: here’s the next one. It’s awesome to see P.A. Works back with their next series, and it shows. This episode had by far the best animation of the season so far. But that’s not what I’m excited about. What really set this series apart was how well it portrayed such a big festival, in which so many things were happening at the same time. The creators didn’t just tell a story, but they also brought the entire festival alive during this episode. Everything and everyone was moving and there was always something going on, from random people having fun to people shooting each other and others going insane and poking their own eyes out. There were so many details stuffed into just this episode, it’s really amazing and it’s going to be awesome if the rest of the climaxes of this series are going to be the same thing. This series has now already shown that it can deliver a great action scene. Now all that’s left is to develop the plot and characters.

Zan Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is in despair.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (haven’t blogged the first two seasons, ain’t gonna blog it this time either)
And so, the third installment of Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei has started. I do have to say that the creators are going to have to put in some real effort to prevent this from turning into one of those franchises that refuses to bloody DIE. The original premise went past its expiration date halfway through the second season, and with this season the creators are really going to have to do more than just repeat the same formula over and over yet again. This episode was… decent. It wasn’t good nor bad, it had some amusing moments, but I really fear that I’m going to get tired of the series in no time if it doesn’t get more interesting.

Some quick first Impressions: Taishou Yakyuu Musume, Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou and Bakemonogatari

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Okay, so I have decided to change the format of these quick first impressions a bit. Instead of waiting for three episodes to air before posting them, I’m just going to post what I have, and edit in the remaining ones when they air.

Taishou Yakyuu Musume

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets invited to play baseball by one of her friends.
Chance of me Blogging: 10% (With such a strong season it’s unlikely)
I really have to say that this has to be one of the best starts of a season in a long while. Of the seven shows I’ve seen so far, only two of them weren’t interesting and fun to watch. There hardly have been any annoyances so far. Anyway, Taishou Yakyuu Musume is the winner of this season’s WTF-moment when the lead character starts singing and dancing rather badly from out of nowhere (those poor typesetters, by the way). It’s a really nice series, though. It’s a slice of life shows about a bunch of girls, living around eighty years ago who plan to start up a baseball club. It’s an interesting premise, and while the slice of life hasn’t been as good as in Aoi Hana, it’s still enjoyable and relaxing. The lead characters are naturally charming without being forced or overly moe, so overall I’m quite pleased with this show so far.

Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters know magic.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (There are too many good shows this season)
The only thing that sucks in this season is the character-designs: all so far are bland, don’t try anything new and lack a visual identity. Apart from that, nearly every series has been enjoyable for me (and besides, the character-design problem will probably go away once I watch Bakemonogatari). I think that that’s a prime for me. Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou granted is the second-worst TV-show this season, and yet I enjoyed this episode. It’s strange: it’s a premise that I usually hate with passion. Here we have a bunch of teenagers who happen to know magic and do… stuff. But strangely this episode really amused me. At first sight we do have a bunch of stereotypes, but they work well together and I liked the chemistry between them a lot. What made this series better than the average moe comedy for me is that it never felt forced: it was the characters who wrote this series, not the scriptwriters. It’s a series that doesn’t pretend to be anything more than it already is: it’s just a bunch of girls having fun with magic, nothing more. Granted, the hot spring part at the end was a bit too much, but heck; I liked the rest of this episode. What’s happening to me!?

Bakemonogatari

Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets a girl who has no weight.
Chance of me Blogging: 70% (I’m impressed)
Whoa, people weren’t kidding that Bakemonogatari was going to rock this season. This episode only gave a small taste of what is to come, and yet I’m very intrigued already. It has pretty much the best OP of the season. Horror series have always had downright excellent first episodes, and this episode really proved the same, as this episode was my second to only Aoi Hana this season so far. It’s great to see that Shinbo still has enough inspiration to try out new kinds of animation and visuals, so this series doesn’t feel like a rehash of one of his previous shows. It’s also great to see that he has planned out this series very well, and is even willing to extend the amount of episodes beyond the amount that can be broadcast, simply to avoid this show getting rushed. Seriously, more series should do that.

Some quick first Impressions: Umineko no Naku Koro ni, Aoi Hana and Needless

by psgels, posted in Aoi Hana, Some Quick First Impressions, Umineko no Naku Koro ni

Umineko no Naku Koro ni

Short Synopsis: Our lead character visits an island owned by his grandfather, along with the rest of his mysterious family.
Chance of me Blogging: 70% (It’s from the creators of Higurashi, so yeah)
Well, the series with the biggest amount of hype around it has finally aired. First of all I have to ask: out of all possible lead characters, could the creators have chosen one that is even more bland than “Battler”? He may be eighteen years old, but he still acts like an immature teenager and keeps making boob-jokes. In all seriousness though, this first episode was a bit of a disappointment, and well for the following reason: the acting. This episode suffered from a cast of bad voice actors that hardly know to use any subtlety in their voices. This goes for the lead character, but also for just about the entire rest of the cast. These kinds of stories require the characters to be able to switch to a lot of emotions, but the change from one of these emotions in the others feels woody at best. Ok, sure there could be a chance that everyone in the family is infected with the “hopelessly bad acting virus”, but the voice acting cast really needs to do a better job in the rest of the episodes if they want to do justice to this excellent storyline.

Aoi Hana

Short Synopsis: Our lead character enters high-school and meets with an old childhood friend.
Chance of me Blogging: 80% (Lots of potential)
Now this is more like it. Noise has done it again, as this seems likely to be the third hit in a row for the time-slot. It’s obviously not going to be for those who want a fast-paced storyline, but I personally loved the subtle yet poignant drama between the two lead characters who meet each other again after having been separated when they were kids. The tall girl is a bit of a crybaby, but she definitely has her charms. The rest of the cast also feels alive, rather than being a bunch of 2D Stereotypes. There wasn’t any annoyance about this episode, aside from the fact that I just know that the rich and detailed animation of this episode is probably going to disappear after the next episode.

Needless

Short Synopsis: Our lead character loses his sister and meets a weird priest with strange powers.
Chance of me Blogging: 20% (With so many other great shows this season? Not likely)
It’s strange: the character-designs in this series are abysmal; their style is uninspired and too similar to most other anime and the costumes make EVERONE look like an incredibly ridiculous fashion-victim. The rest of the visuals however, are really sweet. The animation was really good, the gun-designs rocked, and the shots in which the characters weren’t doing bland things really rocked with their visual style. Overall, this was a typical first episode in which the creators go all out to make it as exciting as possible, and for me they did a pretty good job: this episode was a lot of fun to watch, with a lot of adrenaline-pumping action and an interesting cast of characters so far. This series feels the most like the next Koukaku no Regios, so let’s hope that this time the creators do know how to handle the rest of the story, as it definitely has the potential for a fast-paced action story. I liked how the main characters are of all kinds of different ages: we have a kid, a teenager, a guy in his thirties and an old guy. Definitely makes the series varied.

Some quick first Impressions: Saint Seiya The Lost Canvas, Fight Ippatsu! Juuden-Chan! and Umi Monogatari

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, Special Articles

Saint Seiya The Lost Canvas

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has huge powers for no particular reason and gets to become a saint.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (No way)
Okay, so I’m pretty much a Saint Seiya noob: I’ve never watched anything of the franchise, despite how it seems to be churning out an OVA every year. So yeah, this felt like a good opportunity to check out and see what this franchise was all about. Well, if the rest of the installments are anything like this first episode, then it’s a franchise full of hopelessly bad acting and stereotypes. Seriously, this episode starts with a bunch of generic bullies nearly killing a dog, only for one of the lead characters to act like a flower-child and protect it. The other lead character is your typical hot-blooded teen-aged lead, only exaggerated even more than usual. The episode was full of inconsistencies or things that just didn’t make any bloody sense; my favourite of this has to be the point where a river was blocked by a bunch of rocks from a landslide. So what does our main character do? HE TRIES TO PUNCH HIS WAY THROUGH THE ROCKS. Granted though, the animation looked really nice and the backgrounds looked pretty. But pretty pictures aren’t going to excuse the disaster that is the cast of characters.

Fight Ippatsu! Juuden-Chan!

Short Synopsis: Our lead character hasn’t been toilet-trained properly and Deus ex Machinas depressions away.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (No way)
It’s stupid, clichéd, full of fanservice and stereotyped. But still I have to admit that it made me laugh at times. This is basically another shounen mahou shoujo, but for once the chemistry between the male and female lead was enjoyable, rather than annoying. The problem with this series however, is that that’s just about the only thing that I liked. The visuals look horrible, the background music is generic voice-less J-Pop. The drama is incredibly shallow: it’s built up poorly and simply solved because the lead character has the power make depressions go completely away. It just screams laziness to me. The fanservice also was abysmal at times. Fully unneeded, especially in the ED, and you know a character is bad when she still pees in her pants.

Umi Monogatari

Short Synopsis: Our lead character lives under water.
Chance of me Blogging: 40% (If the rest of the season is mediocre)
Another series with lots of moe, but it’s actually pretty interesting. Umi Monogatari tells the story of a tribe of people who live underwater and use strange rings to move to the shore. It’s got an ambient atmosphere with lots of quiet piano background songs. The pacing is also quiet yet at the end o the episode there were definitely some dark pasts. A major theme of this episode also was cultural differences, which can become quite interesting as well if the series develops it properly. My one gripe with this episode was the comedy, though; it just felt forced, so that’s a potential problem for the future of this series. I know that ZEXCS isn’t the best company out there, and the animation and visuals really are nothing special, but if they can make this series as solid as they did with Wagaya no Oinarisama, then I’m in.

Some quick first Impressions: Ristorante Paradiso, Higashi no Eden and Hatsukoi Limited

by psgels, posted in Eden of the East, Ristorante Paradiso, Some Quick First Impressions

Ristorante Paradiso

Short Synopsis: Our lead character visits a restaurant managed by lots of bishies
Chance of me Blogging: 100% (Obviously, since I’m already blogging it)
This one was surprisingly relaxing, to be honest. while most people are probably going to avoid this one because of all the middle aged bishies, it feels like some cross between Bartender and Antique Bakery. While from the outside it looks like yet another josei series (okay, yet another… there hardly are any of them in the first place, but you get what I mean), this episode was strangely charming and I’m quite fond of the lead female character. I only have one big complaint, though: the overuse of CG. Even the most useless things that would have been much easier to just draw have been CG-ified, with some pretty bad results. Still, I really like what Fuji TV is trying to do right here, in creating yet another time-slot with interesting premises aside Noitamina. Especially after it was followed by Michiko e Hatchin. It’s going to become interesting if they can keep this up.

Higashi no Eden

Short Synopsis: Our lead character visits the white house and runs into a weirdo with amnesia.
Chance of me Blogging: 100% (Hell Yeah!!)
Okay, so what have we here? Out of all first episodes this season so far, Higashi no Eden has by far the best OP, the most imaginative setting, the most interesting characters, the best mystery, the best use of amnesia, the most natural dialogue, the best combination between quiet scenes in which nothing happens and eventful ones, the best Engrish (the best use of Engrish ever since Beck, actually) the biggest amount of weirdness and it has me more intrigued than any other show. Oh, I love how Production IG manages to come up with these premises that you’d never think of. Here I thought that Eden of the East would be some combination of Shangri-la, and any one of the long line of fantasy shows that this season has already so many of. Guess my surprise when it turns out to be a series about a naked terrorist with amnesia who befriends a twenty year old Japanese girl and goes to Japan with her. I’m really interested in this series, and what the heck the creators are planning to do in only eleven episodes.

Hatsukoi Limited

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets confessed to by a huge streetpunk.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (Interesting concept, but I already have enough plans for this season)
My first impression when the OP started rolling was “oh god… generic harem”. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this wasn’t a harem at all, but instead a show about a bunch of school girls experiencing their first loves. It’s going to be interesting to see the modern version of Sentimental Journey here, with each episode focusing on a different girl (don’t ask me what the show plans to be doing in its final episodes, though). I do have some complaints, though: the girls just look like carbon copies of each other. There’s nothing that really sets them apart from each other. While the girls in Sentimental Journey all had their own problems and lives, the girls of Hatsukoi feel more like carbon copies of the same moeblob.

Some quick first Impressions: Konnichiwa Anne, 07-Ghost and Souten Kouro

by psgels, posted in 07-Ghost, Konnichiwa Anne, Some Quick First Impressions

Konnichiwa Anne

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is finally ready to tell the story of how she grew up.
Chance of me Blogging: 200% (Seriously, is there any way for me not to blog this series?)
Finally! I’m really glad to finally see the next World Masterpiece Theatre again, and it doesn’t disappoint. While most of them all have the same start, after the first thirteen episodes they all move into different directions that only have one thing in common: an AWESOME cast of characters. there are definitely differences when compared to the style that the great Isao Takahata used when he adopted the original Anne of Green Gables series, and this episode indeed wasn’t as good as the powerhouse of Ghibli’s founders, but nevertheless it was such a wonderful episode, and you can really see that the little girl in this episode would grow into the lovable girl of the Akage no Anne series. The creators really managed to capture Anne’s endless fantasies about all sorts of things like her pigtails, red cats and other sorts of silly stuff that’s typical of of young children. There is obviously no way that this is ever going to be subbed within the next six months, so I’ll at least try to provide a summary for all of the following episodes for those who want to follow this show anyway. Oh, and for those who are still interested in this series (yeah, both of you), you don’t need to have watched Anne of Green Gables in order to enjoy this series: it’s simply a prequel and a very good standalone series.

07-Ghost

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is about to graduate from some sort of magical power-school.
Chance of me Blogging: 90% (Hell Yeah!)
Finally! I kept wondering what the heck happened to Studio Deen this season, but I’m glad to see that they at least managed to put out one series this season, and it’s promising to be a really good one. This episode formed one heck of an introduction, where already lots of stuff happened without feeling rushed. While it starts out as your average high-school series, a big twist near the end turns this into some sort of tale for revenge. My only gripe is the animation, but then again Studio Deen has never been strong at detailed animation. While I don’t think that this is going to become one of Studio Deen’s top works, it’s still promising to be a very good one.

Souten Kouro

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is leading a powerful army in ancient China
Chance of me Blogging: 10% (Really not sure about this one…)
Finally! I was really wondering what happened to Madhouse this season, but here they finally are with their new series… though unfortunately I’m not really positive about it. It feels like some sort of weird cross between Hokuto no Ken and Koutetsu Sangokushi, characters are way too busy trying to look cool rather than being interesting, it’s got the good guys pretty and strong bad guys ugly and weak syndrome so far. The graphics also look really sweet on one side (I appreciated to see finally some good gore), but the big-lipped CG Dragon that ate itself was utterly abysmal. All in all, I here get the feeling of a show that’s trying way too hard. It lacks the impact and feel of the average Madhouse series, and feels more like a Madhouse Wannabe instead.

Some quick first Impressions: Hanasakeru Seishonen, Guin Saga and Kigurumikku

by psgels, posted in Guin Saga, Some Quick First Impressions

Hanasakeru Seishonen

Short Synopsis: Our lead character can choose between three bishies to marry.
Chance of me Blogging: 5% (Something really weird has to happen in order for me to blog this thing)
Ah, this season’s obligatory shoujo series. I was already wondering when it was going to pop up. Still, this one unfortunately promises to be even worse than average. The thing with most of the shoujo-romances I’ve watched so far is that while they start out promising, they usually fall apart somewhere after around eight episodes (with some very notable exceptions, of course). This show already seems to be falling apart with the first episode, which… really isn’t promising a lot. The creators tried to insert way too much nonsensical drama, resulting from one cheesy scene to the other, with nearly all of them bordering on the ridiculous. It’s a shame, this show really seems to be trying, but so far it has really no idea on how to tell a good story. Having said that though; the music was pretty nice. Especially that ED was really well sung and perfect for such a series. Ah, if only the rest wasn’t so hopeless.

Guin Saga

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are the prince and princess of a country that gets attacked by some sort of evil empire.
Chance of me Blogging: 60% (If the second episode is as impressive as this one)
With a title as “Guin Saga”, I expected yet another one of those fantasy series that are already so prevalent this season, but oh my god, this episode really left me impressed. While not a lot of things happened and the pacing was really slow, this episode also was really solid, both in terms of storytelling and production values. Seriously, the animation in this episode looked really sweet, and you can see that Satelight is in its elements this season. While the whole thing of a destroyed country that needs to be rescued by the prince and princess because they miraculously escape is nothing new, I see lots of potential in the character development, with this solid of a first episode. Let’s hope it can keep this up.

Kigurumikku

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are a bunch of magical girls who save the world from evil.
Chance of me Blogging: 20% (Not sure what could be blogged about a series like this, but what the heck)
Okay, I think that with this series, I’ve found the most hilarious first episode of the season. I’m a huge fan of parodies, but I hate it when a show just sticks in random references to other shows without making fun of them. Kigurumikku completely slaughters the credibility of mahou shoujo–series in the shounen-genre and has lots of fun in the process. I really laughed a lot during this episode, and there were many hilarious points. What I liked most was the huge wit of the scriptwriters. Now, my message to the creators is simple: please keep this up, and don’t start milking out your own jokes or get boring!

Some quick first Impressions: Saki, Tayutama ~Kiss on my Deity~ and Shangri-La

by psgels, posted in Shangri-La, Some Quick First Impressions

Saki

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is very good at Mah Jong.
Chance of me Blogging: 20% (Really not sure about this one)
At this point, I don’t know what to think about this series, and whether it’s going to be Good Gonzo or Bad Gonzo. There is some definite potential, but at the same time there are so many things that got on my nerves. The lead character is charming, but some of the other members of the cast were beyond obnoxious (especially that overly squeaky little girl). The fanservice-parts felt really weird and forced (Gonzo is a bit too fond of its fanservice at times, and it really shows in this show). The ED is a very annoying J-Pop song which SO doesn’t fit my tastes and the small bit of drama between “boob”-san and Saki in the middle bit felt forced and not really that genuine. Having said that, though, the Mah-jong parts do feel interesting, the student council president was nice to watch, and overall there is potential, both for the show to become something nice or fall apart completely.

Tayutama ~Kiss on my Deity~

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to marry a cute fox girl.
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (No)
Hehe… oh boy. Well, what we have here is another one of those romantic comedies that try to find the most ridiculous ways to get a male and female to live together with each other. This time, it’s an ancient fox deity who gets transported to modern days, turns into a little girl, and then turns back into a teenager again when the male lead promises her that he’s going to marry her when she’s grown up. Yeah, you have to love the depth of this show, but what stands out the most in this episode were the utterly, utterly horrible character-designs. THAT HAIR! Aren’t these girls ashamed or something? The editing also feels unprofessional at times, and there are certain transitions from one scene to another that are so obviously flawed that I suspect that this episode was produced in a very big hurry. In any case, this definitely is another one of those series for the people who are into cheesy romantic comedies. If you’re not, then stay faaaaaaaaaaar away from this one.

Shangri-La

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has been in youth prison for two years, it seems.
Chance of me Blogging: 60% (I’m intrigued)
Ooh, nice. Shangri-la has great ambitions, and I really liked all of the different kinds of ideas that were put into the setting; definitely creative. I liked all the potentially interesting characters, the detailed character-designs, the culture that these people live in; all in all it’s good stuff. But then again, with huge ambitions also come huge potential pitfalls: is this show going to be able to put everything it wants to show in its limited time frame, or are things just going to fall apart in a rushed and incomplete conclusion? This show especially has to deal with explaining how a teenaged girl seems to be so incredibly good at fighting with such a strange weapon, and the strange instances of fanservice were typical Gonzo. Still, the potential’s definitely there.