Category: Some Quick First Impressions

Some quick first impressions: Wagaya no Oinarisama, Neo Angelique Abyss and Da Capo II Second Season

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Wagaya no Oinarisama

The best thing about this series? The soundtrack. It surprises me as well, but Wagaya no Oinarisama has been the first series this season where the background music has stood out for me. All other series up till now featured either some cheesy J-Pop (not really my taste to say the least) or obligatory dark tunes that do their job. In this series, however, the music is subtle, yet very varied. One moment you hear a violin, then comes a flute, and then it’s the turn for the piano. Also, any soundtrack that has a choir is automatically win in my opinion. About the rest of the series: it’s solid so far. The characters are likable, and there’s some good chemistry between them. The story is nothing special, but this series seems to go for the slice-of-life route anyway. For now, it’s looking interesting enough.

Neo Angelique Abyss

Okay, let me correct that statement a bit: nearly every soundtrack that has a choir is automatically win in my opinion. You can of course always take it too far. I’ve found that obscure series are always either incredibly good or incredibly bad, and this one’s obviously of the bad kind. Really, it’s hilarious to see all the clichés present: a huge cast of bishies, all great fighters, a pretty female lead who has huge powers that enable her to stand in the centre of all these bishies, lots of angelic themes, and as a bonus, the evil power of the bad guy’s monsters turns out to give everyone it touches (except for the bishies for some strange reason) wrinkles. Of course, the worst fear for any young girl! I’ve ranted a lot about bad shounen-series, but that doesn’t mean that the shoujo-series don’t have their disasters as well. 😛

Da Capo II Second Season

Err… don’t ask me why I found it a good idea to check out the fourth instalment of Da Capo. It was worth a good laugh at the predictable plot here (and of course the waking-up scene couldn’t be missing), but I admit that there have been far worse series this season than this one. This is really another one of those “rainy-day anime”, which you can watch on a rainy day if you need to spend time other than taking for example your dog out to walk. However, that takes me to the huge size of this franchise. Including this series, there’ll be 78 freaking episodes. I acknowledge that this is a nice series to relax and all, but I really can’t imagine myself sitting through 10 episodes of virtually the same over and over again, let alone eighty-seven.

Some quick first impressions: Zettai Karen Children, Code Geass – Lelouch of the Revellion R2 and Nabari no Ou

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Zettai Karen Children

Well, here’s a surprise. I was about to condemn this series to the depths of hell, but it actually turned out quite entertaining for a light watch. It’s definitely not meant to be taken seriously, but series like that are nice once in a while as well. It really reminded me of a raunchy version of Power Puff Girls Z, and that definitely has potential for the future. There’s just one thing: I still don’t understand what people find so good about Hirano Aya. Her voice is annoying and way too exaggerated, and probably the most annoying thing of this first episode. What this series needs to do now is introduce interesting side-characters, and keep itself fresh throughout its entire run. I also hope that the big bad guy isn’t entirely serious and has a humorous side as well. A lot of good comedies have been ruined before because the major villain took himself too seriously.

Code Geass – Lelouch of the Revellion R2

No, that’s not a typo. Apparently, it’s the official spelling of this series according to this episode. In any case, this episode had a few too many things in common with a bad soap. Amnesia? Suzaku who has become even more stereotypical than he already was? The military knew about Lelouch, and yet they didn’t kill him as soon as they got the chance? This series is becoming harder and harder to take seriously. Ah well, at least it’ll be good for some brainless action, and with a bit of luck the upcoming episodes will become so over-the-top that they’ll be worth a good laugh.

Nabari no Ou

That main character sounds way too much like a girl! Whenever he talks, I keep seeing a strange Shana/Nagi/Louise clone acting tsundere. In any case, Nabari no Ou has solid production-values, but I’m not that excited about this series. Perhaps its the fairly generic premise so far, perhaps it’s the fact that the main cast all consists out of bishies while all the bad guys are ugly, or perhaps it’s because none of the characters has been particularly interesting so far. It’s not like I expected anything from this series, but it’s still a shame that it turned out so generic so far.

Some quick first impressions: Kanokon, Blassreiter and Kamen no Maid Guy

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Kanokon

Xebec has really fallen. Once they were a studio that brought quality-series like The Third and Hitohira, though this season their only focus seems to be fanservice. Really, I don’t know what’s left to say about these series in which the male main character suddenly gets loved by a bunch of beautiful girls for no reason. They’re bad, and just depend on their fanservice to make as many otaku buy their DVDs as possible. At least, I have to give this series credit that the dialogue seems a bit more inspired than usual series of this kind, but that’s to be expected with this being based on a light novel.

Blassreiter

To be honest, this episode didn’t give me any reason to condemn this series as an utter failure. There were a few problems here and there, where the animation looked rather unnatural, but overall this turned into a very capable action-series. And therein lies the problem, though. It’s been a really long time since I watched a “good” action series, and something really has to be wrong when the most satisfying action scenes I’ve seen for the past year came from Power Puff Girls Z. Action-series like Devil May Cry, who had great first episodes also turned out to consist of nothing but fillers, and while Gurren Lagann was entertaining, it still wasn’t really what I was looking for. Blassreiter definitely has the potential, but I first want to see whether it won’t screw up its future episodes before I get my hopes up too high.

Kamen no Maid Guy

Well, it’s a good thing that this seems to be a season of shoujo anyway, so I didn’t have any big expectations for this series. I maybe chuckled trice during this episode, which is way too little for a good comedy. This series really seems to try too hard, but all it does is waste a lot of energy on fanservice jokes that get boring really fast. I don’t even mind the bad animation, but there’s so much you can do with a concept of a GAR maid with a mask, and this series seems to choose the most predictable route through lots and lots of fanservice. I’m going to give this series one more chance, to see whether it’s perhaps like Muteki Kanbanmusume, though for now I won’t recommend this one.

Some quick first impressions: Druaga no Tou ~The Aegis of Uruk~, Amatsuki and Itazura na Kiss

by psgels, posted in Amatsuki, Some Quick First Impressions

Druaga no Tou ~The Aegis of Uruk

Well, this episode turned out to be something entirely different than expected. You can say a lot about Gonzo, but I don’t think that anyone can say that they don’t know how to create a bad game-adaptation, and they use this perfectly to their advantage for this episode to create a hilarious RPG-parody that also takes the Mick out of popular series as Haruhi and Gurren Lagann. I was throwing all kinds of curses at Gonzo before I found out. 😛 On the other hand, however, this series still has a 16-year old male protagonist, so there’s still enough room for screwing this up. Still, it’s a good thing that Gonzo knows how not to do this series; now let’s hope that they do know how to do it properly. One hint that points in a positive direction is that none of the characters we saw in this episode, apart from the main guy and his rival, seems to be a major character. Are they going to get killed off or something? Now that would be a great opportunity for character-development.

Amatsuki

Seriously, why do so many series suddenly have first episodes of this quality!? I’ve been used to the fact that nearly every series starts out mediocre, and here series after series suddenly sparkles with potential. Really, apart from To Love-Ru and Kyou Kara Maou, I have yet to see a series this season that didn’t deliver for its first episode! In any case, Amatsuki turned out like I hoped it would: a wolf in sheep’s clothing. On one side, it’s reminiscent of a Kyou Kara Maou-clone without any sexual innuendo, and then suddenly the main character sees a huge beast slaughtered in front of him. Don’t make the mistake that this will be an ultra cheerful series, because this series isn’t afraid to deal with the darker topics.

Itazura na Kiss

The past Autumn- and Winter-season featured an unexpected wave of good shounen-romance series, though this really seems to be the turn for the shoujo-romances to shine again. It’s felt like ages since a good one popped up, after the disappointing Shugo Chara and all. For Itazura na Kiss, the character-designs look very simple, but that’s the beauty of it: neither the males nor the females feel exceptionally beautiful, like you see in so many other series. Heck, our main female lead is befriended with a couple of punks. The story for this series isn’t anything special, and it’s just meant to get another boy and girl in one house, but what really shines in this series is its lovable cast of characters. It’s just been one episode, and already the characters feel diverse and have shown the viewer multiple sides. Now all that’s left is to hope that this series won’t delve into useless fillers, but I’m pretty confident with the director and the music composer of Toward the Terra and the animation-company of Kaze no Shoujo Emily.

Some quick first impressions: Allison to Lillia, Kurenai and xxxHolic Kei

by psgels, posted in Allison to Lillia, Kurenai, Some Quick First Impressions, xxxHolic

Allison to Lillia

Ah, the first good series of the season. This episode was pretty solid; it started out as not anything special, but as it went on, it became more interesting by the minute, and this is just the first episode. You can really see the influences of both Mokke and Kino no Tabi, and yet this series goes into its own direction. It turns out that this series will be about two couples: Allison and Will, and Lillia and Treize, who have yet to be introduced. My only point of critique would be that Will’s voice-actor sounds a bit too young for his age, but that should be easy enough to get used to. Another interesting thing is that the female lead likes to ignore rules if necessary. It never really came to me, but you don’t often see people that break rules as easy as she does in anime. One thing I’m hoping for the future episodes is to explain a bit more about the politics of the country that the two main characters live in, but with 26 episodes there should be plenty of time for that.

Kurenai

Whoa! Here’s a contender for the best first episode of the season. You can really see that Brains Base (who did the animation for Baccano!) worked on this series, and the result looks absolutely gorgeous. There are hardly any still frames, characters make subtle gestures, the 7-year old girl really sounds like a young girl instead of a squeaky 30-year old voice actress and the OP has been done entirely in flash. The art style is a strange combination between that of Red Garden and Baccano, which only makes things better. The scriptwriting also is quick and witty. Here’s a potential classic, if the creators can keep up this level of quality, at least.

xxxHolic Kei

What an awesome episode to start off the second season! This episode was exactly the reason why I fell in love with the first season. Watanuki is downright hilarious, and stands miles away from your “typical high school boy”. On top of that, this series has always featured thought-provoking cases, and this episode was no exception. I won’t spoil anything, but if you liked the first season, you just have to watch this episode. Really, this series makes coming up with an entertaining storyline look so incredibly easy.

Some quick first impressions: Chi’s Sweet Home, Kyou Kara Maou Third Season and To Love-Ru

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Chi’s Sweet Home

Ever since I first saw the promo, this series intrigued me. It was a show about a lost kitty, and yet it was labelled as a seinen-show and animated by Madhouse and the episode director of Death Note and the assistant director of Shigurui. Well, it turns out that the guy was just looking for something completely different to work on, and rather took this to the extreme. Chi’s Sweet Home is a really cute series, though with just ninety seconds for each episode, it’s way too short. Heck, even Hanoka was longer. How many episodes will there be anyway?

Kyou Kara Maou, Third Season

A few years ago, I watched the first few episodes of this series, though I dropped it when the sexual innuendo became a bit too much to take seriously. I became intrigued again, however, when I found out that the director of Simoun and True Tears was behind it, so I decided to give this series one more shot, just in case this turned out to be more than fangirl bait. It didn’t start off too well, when the very first scene features a bunch of unicorns, though thankfully there were one or two scenes that at least hinted at potential. Overall, though, I feel that this series really needs to take itself more seriously. The main character is a king, yet he seems to know nothing about how to properly run a country. What bugs me the most, however, is that it’s been seventy freaking episodes and the characters hardly feel different. A 13-episode series is excused to have minimal character-development, but 70 episodes are plenty of time for the characters to go through changes. Really, what the heck have these characters been doing in the first two seasons?

To Love-Ru

Well, so this one turned out exactly like expected, and that’s a bad thing because I was expecting this to suck. There’s nothing much to say, actually. The only reason why you’d want to check this out is because of the fanservice, nothing else has any value. Things are badly explained, the main character is just another “typical high-school boy”, who turns out to have the mysterious power of attracting cute girls. It’s just the same we’ve seen over and over again. In any case, after watching this series, I was edging for another episode of Kyou Kara Maou, and that’s not a good sign.

Some quick first impressions: Mnemosyne – Musume-tachi, Mai Otome S.ifr and Bus Gamer

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Mnemosyne Musume-Tachi

Mnemosyne’s strategy is basically to attempt to capture its audience with lots of gore and nudity. Like I said before, I haven’t bought the formula yet. The characters do have potential, but it seems to me that they’re trying a bit too hard to be sympathetic, so early on. Especially the case for the first episode was a bit too extreme, and to me it seemed that it was more keen on to shock its viewer than to come up with a cohesive story. Who knows, this is one series that can go both ways: it can get lost in its endless fanservice, or it can turn out to be quite an interesting character-study. One thing that I do want to say is that the OP is pretty amazing. Especially the track that the creators found for it.

Mai Otome S.ifr.

Well, at least this one looks to actually contribute to the Mai Otome-universe, rather than the abomination of Mai Otome Zwei. Still, the new characters are just as annoying as all the other series. Thankfully, the main character is less annoying than Arika was, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t get on my nerves every time she appears. Overall, I doubt that something good can come out of this OVA, but at least it seems to be trying. It’s going to have to try really hard to fit in all the development for the huge load of new characters, though. Hardly anything was explained in this episode (heck, we still don’t know why Sifr was kidnapped in the first place), and it’s going to take a lot of time for just three episodes to explain everything.

Bus Gamer

Well, this didn’t turn out as interesting as I hoped. Bus (as in BUSiness, not an actual bus) Gamer obviously didn’t receive that big of a budget to work with. The crows that appear once in a while look really bad, and one particular character has his hair conveniently over his eyes so that the animators wouldn’t have to draw them. The OP sung by a boy band and the bishounen character-designs quickly show that this is a series, aimed to cater the fangirls. The bad guys don’t help much either, because they’re just a bunch of paper bags that need to be defeated by the good guys. But that’s where the three-episode format for this series comes into play. This isn’t your top-quality series, but the episode was fun to watch. The creators managed to keep this episode interesting, despite the faulty ingredients. The music is also very decent, and as it look like, this series won’t have any time to get boring. This really is one of these series that’s for those rainy days when you’re bored and need half an hour to burn.

Some quick first impressions: Spice and Wolf, Noramimi and Hakaba Kitarou

by psgels, posted in Hakaba Kitarou, Some Quick First Impressions

Spice and Wolf

So… this is what you get if you hand an award-winning novel to an animation-company like Imagin: an authentic atmosphere, interesting characters, and a main female lead who spends nearly the entire episode without any clothes whatsoever and basically ruins the entire series. Still, I do admit that this series turned out better than I originally expected. I can see the potential here in this series, and this episode also took its time in telling the story. At times, I’m just not sure whether the creators’ minds were on storytelling or cheap fanservice, and seeing their reputation (Love Love, Cosmopolitan Prayers, Smash Hit…) there is enough reason to worry about this one to fall into a fanservice-fest.

Noramimi

Ooh, this reminds me so much of Tetsuko no Tabi! Not in terms of story, but in terms of execution. The graphics again are simple and again there’s great chemistry between the characters. Basically, in this series people live together with things called mascots. Noramimi is about a sort-of dating-service company, which basically matches people and mascots so they can live together. It works quite well, but yet again, I don’t see this one getting any chance of being subbed. Still, any series that features a hamster smoking a cigarette deserves to be watched.

Hakaba Kitarou

Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! I can’t believe I was wrong in my entry about Shigofumi! The best first episode of the season definitely belongs to Hakaba Kitarou, and yes, I’m serious about it. Gegege no Kitarou, which aired last year, got dull quite fast, but Hakaba Kitarou turned into a really well-done and freakish horror-series. Whether it can keep up with the same quality for the rest of the series remains another question, but still the fact remains that this episode absolutely ROCKED. If you’re tired of all the moe-shows, you should definitely give this one a chance. I LOVE what noitaminA has been doing for anime for the past few years!!!

Some quick first impressions: Strait Jacket, Minami-ke Okawari and Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino

by psgels, posted in Gunslinger Girl - Il Teatrino, Some Quick First Impressions

Strait Jacket

Well, this OVA has been pretty dull so far. The biggest reason for this is a rather dull cast of characters. None of them really stands out, and they’re all rather stereotypical. On one hand, the creators want to be all serious and dramatic with gruesome deaths and killings, and on the other side the biggest priority of the cast of main characters is whether or not they look good. So far, the first episode did introduce the concept, but the overall storyline (which should be important for an OVA like this) is dangerously ignored. The premise is solid so far, but the creators do need to try harder in the next episodes if they want to make this work out.

Minami-ke Okawari

I dropped the original series after two episodes because it just wasn’t that funny, but I became interested in this series when I learned that this season of Minami-ke would be handled by an entirely different production-team. The three main characters still aren’t that interesting, though. They’re all a bunch of stereotypes. I do admit that the side-characters are quite funny, though, when they stand in the spotlights. The OP is quite interesting as well, though I don’t think that these factors will make up for the rather lacklustre lead-characters, so I doubt that I’m going to continue watching this series. If you were a fan of the original, though, you might want to check this one out.

Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino

One thing that should be noted first: yes, the character-designs changed. Is it me, or are animators getting lazier nowadays, with hardly any attempt to look different? In any case, the second season of Gunslinger Girl starts with an action-packed episode. While it was definitely exciting, it’s not what the original series great, and I hope that the new staff realizes this for the second season as well. But there’s no need to worry for now. The first season also started with the most action-packed fight of the entire series, and this episode gave enough hints to the deep characters and dialogue. Fans of the series will have to get used a bit to the new style, but apart from that this episode couldn’t have been a better introduction to the second season, and I’m glad to see more of the concept. The new soundtrack also is great. Along with Porfy’s Long Journey the best of the season.

Some quick first impressions: Shigofumi, They are our Noble Masters and Porfy no Nagai Tabi

by psgels, posted in Porfy no Nagai Tabi, Shigofumi ~ Stories of the Last Letter, Some Quick First Impressions

Shigofumi

Ever since the past spring-season, Saturday has by far been my busiest day in terms of blogging, and it doesn’t look like the Winter-Season is going to change this, with yet another excellent series. Even though we’re only halfway the season yet, I’m pretty sure that Shigofumi has the best episode of all the new shows that have aired. It’s only the first episode, and it kept my interest throughout the entire episode with some excellent storytelling (and a very nice twist at the end. ^^;). Shigofumi turned into an excellent combination of Shinigami no Ballad and Jigoku Shoujo, and grabbed the best elements of them. The main character for this episode would have been better if he was a bit smarter (what idiot fires off an amateur-rocket in the middle of a city anyway?), but overall, we’ve got ourselves an gem here.

They are our Noble Masters

Well… at least it doesn’t take itself seriously, unlike the abominations of Rosario to Vampire and H2O, though something makes me suspect that some kind of melodramatic element will appear in the semi-final episode or something. In any case, instead of bad, They are our Noble Masters is just boring. There are lots of stereotypes and fanservice, but at least the plot doesn’t seem to be written by a whiny twelve-year-old who’s just hit puberty. Nearly everything about this series is just mediocre, though at least there is chemistry between the characters that kept me from falling asleep. Overall, this series will never become memorable, though at least it’s not the worst this season’s had to offer.

Porfy no Nagai Tabi

Okay, I know that this is rather useless, but please, someone sub this series, and don’t let it get horribly ignored like what happened with Les Miserables. There’s a very good reason why this is a series that’s part of the World Masterpiece Theatre-series: there’s no moe, no forced climaxes, no stereotypes, and instead it’s got genuine and detailed storytelling. Like expected, the big earthquake that separates Porfy from his sister has yet to happen, and I can imagine how the creators decided to use the first few episodes to flesh out the two of them and their mother, and already it has been an excellent slice-of-life series. Sure, this is definitely going to be the slowest series of the entire season, but it’s going to be worth it when the drama kicks in. To add to that: this series also has the best background-art of the entire season. It looks absolutely gorgeous and life-like. The music also is excellent, just like what you’d expect after Les Miserables (the Greek influences really work). Unfortunately, a lot of people will probably not give this series a chance, but you can be sure that I’m going to be blogging it from beginning to end. This definitely is one of the most promising series of the season.