Category: Some Quick First Impressions

Some quick first impressions: Clannad ~After Story~, Kuroshitsuji and Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Clannad ~After Story~

Short Synopsis: Our lead character and his friends enter a baseball match.
Highlights: Fun episode to start the second season.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
And so the second season of Clannad has begun. This episode basically shows the lead characters as they play a baseball-match against a professional team, which is a fun way to start the series and get familiar with the characters again. This episode definitely beats Haruhi’s baseball-episode. Overall, the new OP is better than the first one, while the ED has become much worse. The graphics still look solid, although the few instances of CG looked horribly out of place. Ah well, the thing I liked about Clannad were its climaxes, so we may have to wait a bit for this series to get really good. I loved Air, I hated Kanon and I liked Clannad, so let’s see what the after story can do once it catches steam.

Kuroshitsuji

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the butler of a mysterious kid.
Highlights: Ah, the cheese!
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Okay, you know that anime creators are getting desperate when they start to rip off Hiroshi Watanabe’s works! Seriously, anyone who’s even remotely seen Suteki Tantei Labyrinth will recognize the obvious resemblances: both Mayuki and this series’ kid live in a huge mansion and lost their parents. Sebastian is Seiran, Hatsumi is the clumsy maid, Sanae is the gardener, the kid has powers, the butler too, and let’s not forget THE TEA. I mean, this just begs the question: if you’re going to pick a series to rip off, for god’s sake: Why Suteki Tantei Labyrinth?! But I digress: this series will be plenty enough to satisfy my inner-cheese-fanboy. The over-exaggerated glamour of Sebastian the butler was hilarious, and the three servants were just awesome. The background music was just awesome and over the top, fitting the cheesy mood exactly. Seriously, don’t watch this series unless you want to laugh at it. Not with it. This series does have to live up to its expectations, though. I’d better see something that surpasses a pet alligator in a closet and unfortunately placed dog poo (you’ll understand these references if you’ve seen Suteki Tantei Labyrinth). But what probably baffles me the most about this series: people were actually looking forward to it!?

Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live with a cute girl (no, really).
Highlights: Horrible character-designs, but at least the dialogue is nice enough.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6/10
I keep wondering why the creators of these harem-anime spend so much time to make their female character-designs as extravagant and ridiculous as possible, while it’s most often the simple designs that look best. I mean, Real Drive showed this perfectly: even though you don’t have main characters with the perfect bodies, they still can look great. Really, in this series, it just seems like the creators took one body, copied it about twenty times and gave them different ridiculous hairstyles and eye-colours in an attempt to make them cute. Still, I have to admit that this series isn’t all bad. I enjoyed it more than Toradora, and the director seems to be good at the slice-of-life moments. The problem, however, is that he’s pretty much terrible at everything else, including setting up his story. Having cute girls swarm over you is one thing, but letting all of them be the most popular girls in school is a whole different story. The comedy is funny, but not for the reasons it’s supposed to be; the action downright sucks and the drama makes no bloody sense at all and feels forced. Overall, this episode was enjoyable enough, but it just doesn’t have any potential at all, and I suspect it to go downhill very soon.

Some quick first impressions: Casshern Sins, Rosario to Vampire Capu 2 and Shikabane Hime Aka

by psgels, posted in Casshern Sins, Shikabane Hime, Some Quick First Impressions

Casshern Sins

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has upset a lot of (or robots in this case) by killing someone.
Highlights: That Casshern-guy is rather dull.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6,5/10
As much as I’d like to fanboy over the unusual art style and setting, I just can’t. There were too many parts of this episode that just didn’t sit right with me. The tune that the creators picked for the OP doesn’t seem to fit the dark mood of the rest of the series, and most importantly Casshern striked me as a very dull main character. All he does in this episode is fight and angst. Come on, flesh the guy out a bit! Right now he just is another one of those angsty teens with an unknown past, even though he’s a robot. What I also don’t like about this series is its “good guys pretty bad guys ugly”-mentality. Even though they seem to have reasons for their anger at this Casshern, every bad guy ultimately becomes just target practice for this Casshern, none of them have any depth so far. The only thing I did like was that little robot girl and her caretaker. They were nice.

Rosario to Vampire Capu 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead character enters his second year at the “youkai school”.
Highlights: WHY?! WHY did this thing get a second season!?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 2/10
Christ. Here I thought that this series couldn’t possibly get any worse, and here this episode proved me wrong. This episode was downright terrible, with non-sensical characters, stereotypes all over the place and a downright ridiculous plot, not to mention the horrible setting that it inherited from the first season. It’s one thing to bore me, but a series has to be really bad if I end up face-palming through the majority of the episodes, just to get distracted from the pain that is going on on the screen. The only thing that was even remotely interesting was the “Moka-Tsukune-Moka-Tsukune”, but even that felt forced. I mean, I really want to give these bishoujo-series a chance and all, but it’s series like this one that really make it difficult for me to take them seriously.

Shikabane Hime Aka

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has yet to get involved with a group of “Shikabane”-hunters.
Highlights: A few flaws here and there, but nonetheless very solid.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Ooh, I’m impressed. There’s a lot to like about this series: excellent soundtrack, very nice fights, a great air of mystery. I also really like the voices of the male and female leads: their voice-actors aren’t trying to be overly cute, but instead believable, which really works. The rest of the cast is a bit less, but that can be forgiven. I also like how this episode closed off with the two of them NOT staying together, and they’re still relative strangers to each other; it’s always good not to rush these things. There were a few coincidences here and there, like when the lead female fell right where the lead male happened to be, but it can be forgiven if they merely served to set up the story and characters. The two classmates were probably the most annoying about this series, but even they got a bit of development at the end of the episode. Overall, good series so far; nice potential, just don’t let this turn into a cheesy love triangle.

Some quick first impressions: Hakushaku to Yousei, Toradora and Hyakko

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Hakushaku to Yousei

Short Synopsis: Our lead character can see fairies and gets kidnapped by a bunch of bishies.
Highlights: Is too busy trying to make its characters look “cool”.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6,5/10
It’s a shame that this series started right after a bunch of awesome cat-shows as Chi’s Sweet Home and Natsume Yuujin-chou: the talking cat in this episode is nowhere near as awesome as Chi or Nyanko-sensei. In any case, this is your typical shoujo-series: female lead goes on an adventure and meets lots of bishies. There’s hardly anything that stands out, though. This series is way too busy with hairstyles that gently wave in the wind, and trying to look cool and charming. Terms as “Fairy Doctor” are needlessly translated to Engrish in an attempt to sound cool. The bishies all look way too much like each other, and none of the character-designs was really that appealing. What can save this series is that in the next couple of episodes is the way that it’s going to explore the European Folkore. If it can explore that in an interesting way, it might still stand a chance, but something tells me that our female lead is going to be too busy being saved by whatever bishie that comes near her.

Toradora

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets to live next to a cute tsundere girl who tries to beat him up (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?).
Highlights: Parrots are awesome. This one isn’t.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 5/10
Oooooh… Kugimiya Rie… please stop doing these annoying tsundere roles that all look and sound the bloody same. They don’t get less annoying if you do more of them. I love your work at Gintama, but stop working yourself into a corner with these Shana-clones. In any case, I think it’s pretty clear that I didn’t like this series. It’s nicely animated, but that’s just about the only positive thing I can say about it. Nothing else stood out, the humour felt flat, and just about every female character annoyed the hell out of me. Considering that we’re still missing one of the lead females (I don’t even want to guess what her role in this series will be…), this promises to be one of your typical high-school romances/harems. I’ve seen enough series with overly cute females for the past summer-season, so I really doubt whether I’m going to continue watching this thing.

Hyakko

Short Synopsis: Our lead character… is lost.
Highlights: Cute.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
My first thought on seeing this series, with yet again a bunch of high-school-girl was “oh god, here we go again”. And then the episode actually started, and it actually proved me wrong. Hyakko is really a breath of fresh air after Toradora and Hakushaku to Yousei and their stereotypes, with genuinely interesting characters, with good chemistry between them. Nothing feels forced, and instead it’s just a lot of fun to just watch them interact. The characters may seem like stereotypes at first, but already within this episode, they managed to turn into something beyond the clichés. I first imagined how this would turn into some sort of Bamboo-Blade-Lucky-Star clone, but this episode proved to be really enjoyable. Let’s hope that it can keep it that way!

Some quick first impressions: Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel, Cobra The Animation and Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are a bunch of crime-fighting mahou shoujo.
Highlights: It’s actually not bad.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6,5/10
Mahou Shoujo OVAs have a questionable reputation of being incredibly dull, after the likes of Dokuro-chan and Ryoufuku-chan were just big excuses for fanservice. Kaitou Tenshi also has a very questionable start. It’s just a bunch of moe girls who beat up stereotypical bad guys, there was no way for this to work. Imagine my surprise when it turns out that this first episode actually did have a clear goal: take the overconfidence that usually comes with the god-moded mahou shoujo, and smash this into the ground. There are a lot of references to Sailor Moon (the first season anyway). The problem, though, that apart from that, there’s hardly anything that really stands out. Characters are standard, the villains are standard. There’s also that matter that the second episode of this series can only go through predictable paths (although it would be awesome if the creators realized this and went with something totally different).

Cobra the Animation

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters meets a cute woman who is involved with an intergalactic space-complot.
Highlights: Is too busy overglorifying its own protagonist.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 5/10
Cobra the Animation seems to be another attempt to revive an old anime franchise, but unfortunately this one didn’t go so well. Overall, it feels very much like a half-assed attempt. The plot so far is rather unimpressive, but the biggest turn-off is that Cobra is just too perfect of a person. He’s an excellent marksman, he’s popular with the ladies, he possesses the latest physics-defying gadgets to steal anything that’s loose. He’s just too awesome, without any weaknesses whatsoever. Add that to the tendency of the creators to just make Cobra appear at the exact places where the story needs him to be without any explanation, and the massive amounts of useless fanservice and you just lost my interest.

Battle Spirits Shounen Toppa

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is obsessed with a children’s card game.
Highlights: Full of stereotypes, but what else did you expect?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 4,5/10
Well, so this is the latest addition to shows that are only aimed at kids. It’s one of those genres that lives off seeing who can rip each other off the most, so it’s not surprising that this is the umpth one about playing card games. To make matters worse, either its rules are very incomprehensible, or they’re inconsistent with each other, which is not really a good start. All the stereotypes are also present: spiky haired bratty lead, female love interest, talented tsundere rival, father who’s either dead or gone, et cetera. Still, it’s not all bad. It’s got a decent OP and ED (which were most likely animated by the same animators as Power Puff Z, giving them a stylish look), and my favourite part: all the cool main characters have cute and fluffy pets that accompany them. The writing is also solid enough when the characters aren’t playing cards, but overall it’s nowhere near Net Ghost Pipopa, the series that I consider the best kiddie-show of 2008 (based on the first episode I watched anyway).

Some quick first impressions: Koihime Musou, Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu and Blade of the Immortal

by psgels, posted in Blade of the Immortal, Some Quick First Impressions

Koihime Musou

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters finds a twelve-year old orphan who is a genius at fighting.
Highlights: Overglorifies its own setting
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6/10
This sort-of reminds me of Prism Ark, and although I admit that the writing is more solid, it does have the same weaknesses. At least there’s no country named “The Untied Kingdom” or “Poleland”, but as things look now, it seems that all the major army commanders are a bunch of little girls in frilly dresses. First of all, who in his right mind would take such a thing seriously? And second: what happened to the males or older females? Did some kind of disease wipe them all out or something? Still, this could have been ignored if it wasn’t for the little girl, mentioned above. She’s living in a regular village, her parents died, and she’s been living by herself for a while now. Then why the heck is she wearing the fanciest clothes in the entire village? How did she become so good at fighting? Who taught her? Why the heck is her house all nice and clean, why does she have a futon that’s not worn out in any single way? I mean, I know that this series isn’t supposed to take itself seriously, but in my opinion, being a comedy is no excuse to be lazy or historically inaccurate. Besides, this episode wasn’t that funny anyway.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu

Short Synopsis: Our lead character discovers that the most popular girl at school is a closet otaku.
Highlights: Oh boy…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 3/10
I must say that I’m surprised at how the series this season featured a very low amount of stereotypes, even series as Seikirei, Koihime Musou and Antique Bakery had at least an enjoyable cast, with perhaps a typical loser male here and there. I was happy with this, but then Nogizaka Haruka came and ruined everything. Seriously, so many stereotypes come together in this series: horny teachers, a clumsy girl, a male lead who isn’t bothered by his hormones, the entire male school population who is, the perfect girl, and I could go on and on for a while. To make matters worse, these stereotypes don’t make any sense either. The above-mentioned horny teachers have the amazing ability to drink as much as they want and never get a hangover. If Haruka is so incredibly clumsy and a cry-baby, why did it take this long for her secret to be discovered? It’s not like this episode described her as a master of keeping secrets. How did such a shy girl become the most popular girl anyway? I could rant on an on about this series. The animation may have a considerable budget, but the characters end up looking dull and uninspired. The OP and ED are incredibly annoying. In other words, I don’t like one bit of this series. Every season has its worst show, and the worst show of Summer 2008 is for me without a doubt Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu.

Blade of the Immortal

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters has a curse on him that makes him immortal.
Highlights: Awesome soundtrack, excellent atmosphere, terrific OP.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
I’m an absolute sucker for samurai-stories and Bee-train, so when the two are combined, there was no way for me not to love this series. The summer-season has already brought a lot of good stuff, but Blade of the Immortal has without a doubt delivered the best first episode of all the new series. It’s great to see that Bee-train is willing to experiment with new styles, because this series is absolutely nothing like their previous works, and the only similarity it shares is the same attention to the awesome soundtrack that this series has. The animation itself was quite decent, but especially the OP features some beautifully choreographed swordfights. Still, everything looks really nice. Great to see Bee-Train back!

Some quick first impressions: World Destruction, Natsume Yuujin-Chou and Mission-E

by psgels, posted in Mission-E, Natsume Yuujin-Chou, Some Quick First Impressions

World Destruction

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters form an organization to destroy the world.
Highlights: Nice ideas, but flawed (see below)
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
This series has a lot to like, and at the same time a lot to hate. It’s probably the first time where humans are actually the oppressed race in a fantasy-series, especially if they’re oppressed by a bunch of cats. The different races that walk around the world are full of imagination, and the idea of a bunch of humans (and a bear, okay), joining together to destroy the world has some definite potential for the second half of this short series. The animation is really messy at times, but it looks excellent. Yoshihiro Ike, one of my favourite composers is behind the background music, and he delivers as usual, though perhaps it’s not his best work. Agh, if only the messages of this series weren’t so blatantly obvious! The lead characters themselves are fine, but it’s the way how they’re presented that gets me. This is one of those nationalistic anime that tries to shoves the message “humans rock, the rest sucks” down your throat, and the rest of the episode really need to work to develop the other races in this series. It would be interesting if through this series, the lead characters will actually be portrayed as the bad guys who will in fact destroy the world, but for that to happen, the cats need to stay away from stereotypes. Right now they’re funny, but I can already see this series go south in a couple of episodes if it doesn’t try to develop them.

Natsume Yuujin-chou

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters can see spirits and has a book of names of these spirits.
Highlights: Low budget, but very solid scriptwriting.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
The first thing that came to my mind when I started watching this is: is this really Brains Base? This really has to be their series with the lowest production-values to date, and things actually look pretty normal, and really different from their usual vivid animation style. Still, their sense of storytelling didn’t degrade one bit, and the director of Baccano and Jigoku Shoujo shows that he still knows how to tell a great story. This episode was nothing sensational or spectacular, but it was a very solid introduction for a series about spirits and ayakashi. This first episode already shows what the ayakashi in this series are made off, and like most of them, they act because of their grudge that was caused by something, and aren’t purely evil for the sake of being evil. I guess that that’s why I like stories about ayakashi so much.

Mission-E

Short Synopsis: Our lead character… has changed a lot since the first season.
Highlights: The huge character-development….; same fun climaxes as in the first season.
Overall Enjoyment Value:8/10
Holy crap! This actually takes place years after the first season! The lead characters have set up an organization to deal with the Type-E users, in order to protect them from the guys we saw in episode 11 and 12. Now here’s a twist you don’t usually see, and I’m really enthusiastic about how it was carried out. The interesting thing is that there seemed to have been no adult to guide them when they set up that organization, and it seems that they had to figure out everything by themselves. They also found a new girl to work with them in the meantime. In any case, before I start rambling, it was awesome to see how every character has changed during the absence of this series. The action-scenes were exaggerated, but they were fun and I can’t wait to see the rest of this series!

Some quick first impressions: Strike Witches, Birdy the Mighty Decode and Yakushiji Ryouko no Kaiki Jikenbo

by psgels, posted in Birdy the Mighty Decode, Some Quick First Impressions

Strike Witches

Short Synopsis: Our lead character becomes a witch that fights against alien forces.
Highlights: Lacks the style of the OVA.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 6,5/10
It’s a shame that the style of the OVA was abandoned for the tv-series. Still, overall Strike Witches did its job, I guess. Ironically, at the moment this seems to be the perfect series for Gonzo to get some of their funds back, because stuff like this definitely sells. There’s lots of fanservice indeed, but it’s nothing when comparing it to Sekirei. This episode was nothing special at all, but it did serve as a good enough introduction, although I wonder whether trucks can violently explode like that. There are lots of characters, which is going to be either this series’ saving grace or doom, whether or not the creators can develop them sufficiently within 12 episodes. I personally doubt it, but I’ve been surprised by such a series more than once.

Birdy the Mighty Decode

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets killed and ends up sharing his body with a female alien cop.
Highlights: Great style, awesome action, fun characters
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
This has been my most anticipated series of the season, and probably the weirdest most anticipated series I’ve ever had for a season. It doesn’t disappoint at all, though. What we have here is a fun action-series, sharing a deep contrast with the other action-series this season (Ultraviolet), which is much darker and melancholic. Birdy the Mighty is sortof like (and it rather disturbed me when I found this out) To Love-Ru done right. We’ve got an alien in a space-ship, but instead of the predictable princess, being chased, she’s a cop, after a bunch of bad guys. When she meets our lead character, she doesn’t instantly fall in love with him without any reason, but instead she accidentally kills him and feels sorry for her own mistake. She also has a dress-up robot, but he dresses up as a strange transsexual. Overall, it feels like much more imagination went into creating this anime, and it’s amazing what a bit of imagination can do to my opinion of a series. And of course, this is being done by the director of Noein, so of course: the fight scenes are bloody amazing. What surprised me the most during the summer previews is the bad reputation this series seemed to be getting, simply because of its name. I mean, what’s so bad about calling your series Birdy the Mighty?

Yakushiju Ryouko no Kaiki Jikenbo

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a policewoman, who gets assigned to supernatural cases.
Highlights: Glamorous look at the way of a detective, but at least the characters are interesting; good luck at explaining that plot-hole at the end of the episode, though.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
Well, this one turned out to be different from expected. What I expected was a supernatural mystery-series, but what I got was a thriller: it’s pretty clear what the enemies are, and they need to be stopped. I may not work with the police or anything, but I do think that the depiction of inspector Ryouko could have been more realistic: she spends the entire episode buying bras, swimming and in fancy clothes, while doing her investigation that’s in no way systematic. That’s why her assistant is the interesting character in this series: he has to put up with her eccentric character, while trying to do his own job as well. I’d really wish for the bad guys to get some more depth in the next episode, because they were rather boring in this one. Ah well, at least this series is backed up by nice enough graphics and an interesting soundtrack that combines techno with eerie sounds.

Some quick first impressions: Someday’s Dreamers: Natsu no Sora, Hidamari Sketch x356 and Antique Bakery

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Someday’s Dreamers: Natsu no Sora

Short Synopsis: Our lead character who lives on the countryside gets accepted on a magic school in Tokyo.
Highlights: Awesome art direction; warm slice of life; is the first season as good as this?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Usually, I refer to the titles of anime in their romanized form, but in this case I’m going to make an exception, simply because it’s so damn long. In any case, as a fan of experimental anime, I just have to say that I LOVE the art direction in this series. The creators actually used live-action backgrounds, and pasted drawings on top of it. The effect looks great, and it’s a very effective way to save a bit of budget without coming across cheap. The character also looks excellent. This episode was mostly slice-of-life on the countryside, and the real meat of this series is probably going to take place somewhere entirely different (a magic school in Tokyo, it seems), but I think that we can expect some great things from this series. It’s already been episode one, and it already introduced a charming love-story between two side-characters.

Hidamari Sketch x356

Short Synopsis: Our lead character enlists on an art school and meets her new neighbours.
Highlights: Energy; better than what I saw of the first season.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
I only lasted for 3 episodes on the original Hidamari Sketch. It wasn’t bad; it just… didn’t catch my attention. I checked out this episode to test whether it had improved since the first season, and surprisingly, it has. For this episode at least. It feels more energetic than the first season, and I actually laughed a bit here and there. I do want to note, however, that Shinbou’s style of direction is getting a bit old. I first noticed this with Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei, but his way of adding random nonsensical shots or texts does tend to distract from what’s really important. Especially in a series that’s supposed to be slice-of-life (ie, relaxing), this works rather distracting. It would be interesting if the guy would try to evolve his own style a bit.

Antique Bakery

Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets employed by a gay baker.
Highlights: Cheese, but knows fully well that it’s cheese.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
I’ve been purposefully keeping my expectations for this series low, since it unites the godly Nippon Animation with the Noitamina-timeslot, so I just expected this series would turn into a gay bishie-series. The scary thing is that I turned out to be right, and yet laughed my ass off in this episode. It’s been a while since I watched some good cheese, and this one seems a darn fine example of it. The entire mood is so depressing, with organ-music, and yet the characters are discussing cakes. The only gay character in this series is also portrayed in a pretty realistic way for anime, and his banter with the straight characters was just priceless. Now let’s hope that the creators can keep this interesting for 11 more episodes.

Some quick first impressions: Ultraviolet: Code 044, Slayers Revolution and Sekirei

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, Ultraviolet: Code 044

Ultraviolet: Code 044

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a famed and feared assassin, probably the best of her kind. In the futuristic world this series is set in, she spends the first episode on two different missions.
Highlights: Excellent action; a feast for the senses; isn’t just dumb action; TOO MUCH FANSERVICE.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Whoa, in terms of first episodes, this one surely caught my attention. This is going to be an action-series, and this episode absolutely delivered in that department. The creators definitely wanted to start off this series with a bang, and the result is a very fast-paced introduction. The graphics were fantastic, and the music was awesome as well. The next question is obviously: will the creators be able to keep up this level. Even with 12 episodes, action series have been rather notorious of deteriorating after their first episodes. Still, this episode showed some good signs: there wasn’t only a lot of action, but also a lot of talking. The characters here aren’t just brainless, but they’re also critical of both themselves and their colleagues. Let’s hope that this proves to be good for the rest of this series. But really, there was too much fanservice. The creators took every chance to show as much skin as possible…

Slayers: Revolution

Short Synopsis: Our lead character apparently is hunted by many people, who in one episode already manage to destroy three ships and one city.
Highlights: Starts dull, gets more interesting as the episode goes on; the pirates suck, though
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
Well, so this was the first thing I saw of Slayers. There were things to like, and things to dislike as well. The main cast needed a bit of time to warm up, but they ended up being an energetic and spunky bunch of people. I was rolling my eyes whenever the pirates were on the screen, though. I don’t hope that every Slayers-minor-villain is as dull as these guys, because they’re all a bunch of stereotypes and they’re just not funny. Same with the giant fish-head (why did it need to hold on to a log at the end of the episode anyway?) Overall, for a comedy it was a decent enough first episode, but I’m not sold on Slayers yet. The problem with comedies also tends to be that you can’t predict at all whether they’ll lose inspiration or not, just by their first episode.

Sekirei

Short Synopsis: A girl with no sense of shame and a typical loser team up in a battle royale.
Highlights: Boobs?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 5/10
I’ve been told that Sekirei is more than just fanservice, so for that sake I might as well try to judge this series, without paying attention to the excessive boob-shots in this episode. What we have here is that a bunch of super-powered girls rescue a young boy from some kind of facility. Ten years later, one of these girls is still in love with this guy and wants him to be her partner for an upcoming battle royale. The thing is that I can live with the battle royale, and the rather questionable enlisting procedure of kissing each other. My problem, however, is this: how come this girl, after ten years, is still in love with that main character. I find it rather hard to believe that in ten years, not one single male has tried to make moves on her, or tried dating her. That’s basically my problem with most series like this one: they seem to think that the main character is the only one allowed to date girls, which results in a huge number of plot-holes. Since this season is small, I have enough time due to holidays and there are only going to be 12 episodes, I might as well give an attempt to watch this one, but I really wonder whether it can deliver in that time…

Some quick first impressions: Hoshi no Umi no Amuri, Candy Boy and Chocolate Underground

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Hoshi no Umi no Amuri

Well… it certainly is original. I’m really not sure what to think about this series. It’s definitely better than I expected: I expected another one of those cheap fanservice OVAs like Koharu Biyori or Ryofuko-chan, and what I got was… well… I’m not even sure what I got. The best thing to compare this series with is a very strange acid-trip that’s gotten way out of hand. Throughout the 30 minutes of airtime, the creators toss all kinds of flashy graphics at your face, they literally bounce from one strange thing to another (including what’s probably the most bizarre parody of Dragon Ball Z EVER). I’m still not sure what the point of the plot was supposed to be, but I guess that this is one of those anime as art OVAS. I must say that I admire the creativity, but the huge wtf-factor of Hoshi no Umi no Amuri DOES REMAIN.

Candy Boy

Oh my god, I am SO late with this anime. It’s good to see another yuri-series again, they’ve been painfully absent since El Cazador and Blue Drop. Candy Boy is another one of those very short series (episodes are only 12 minutes long and there seem to be only 7 episodes in total…), but it’s focused and rather charming, especially when the two main characters are together. There’s a very annoying side-character, though. Whenever she pops up, she breaks the flow of this series with her endless rambling. I feel that Candy Boy could have been better if it just left out this character, especially considering the length.

Chocolate Underground

This is one of those “What if”-series. It asks the question: what if the government massively banned all sorts of chocolate. It does make sense in a strange kind of way. Kids these days keep getting fatter due to lazy parents and the overabundance of sweets, so it would be interesting to see what would happen… but that giant robot really came from nowhere. With five minutes per episode, this series also is criminally short, so I wonder whether it’ll really be able to go into the depths of its topic. Still, it’s fun to watch (especially seeing those government people tease the hell out of these children).