Category: Some Quick First Impressions

Afro Samurai Ah, so this is the long-awaited arrival of Afro-Samurai. It’s quickly become famous for being produced and starred by no other than Samuel Jackson. And as expected, this one’s got a great style. It takes place in a dark and gritty world, focusing on a person who lived his entire life for revenge against his father’s killer. So far, I’m impressed. I expected this to be all style and zero substance, though the story and characters definitely were interesting to see. From the barmaid, and the various challengers to Afro Samurai himself. All that’s left now is to hope that the story will progress into something interesting over the next episodes. There are just two complaints I have with this. At times, the gore becomes a bit too much, and at my version of the episode came enclosed by a trailer of a new Hollywood movie called Norbit. Seriously, even though it’s just a trailer, one could torture, just by showing that piece. Saint October Cool! A mahou shoujo. And a pretty good one as well. The art may look rather low-budget, though what I love is how this anime mixed cliché’s along with totally original and fresh ideas. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it seems like each element in this anime has an original point and an overused point. It gives this anime a cheesy, yet fresh feeling. The setting and mood also were very interesting. What we have here is a semi-futuristic setting with magic elements, which seem to be related to certain cards. The mystery-element also seems to become very interesting. Why does this girl have the ability to transform? What are the bad guys after? Kyoushiro to Towa no Sora Right from the first moment in the first scene, this anime just screams Kannazuki no Miko. If this isn’t the sister-anime of Kannazuki no Miko, then I don’t know anymore. I knew that there were going to be resemblances, though I never thought that there would be this much. Especially the soundtrack is almost exactly alike, with its classical instruments. For Kyoushiro to Towa no Sora, the creators also turned up the elegance two gears, which looked quite interesting. Still, the fact remains that it’s a cheesy love-story. Complete with action, a love rival and a prince on a white horse in a flower-field (seriously, I’m not kidding, and the anime isn’t either). The new main character is just as annoying as Himeko, though a bit less helpless perhaps (so far, at least. The ending of the episode suggested that the next few episodes will reduce her to a romantic damsel in distress). I’m really thinking that this anime will even surpass Kannazuki no Miko in terms of cheesiness, seeing as the drama already went into the boundaries of laughable after only its first episode. Will this anime be able to get out of the depths of cheesiness and melodrama? Well, there’s only one way to find out.]]>

Yeah, I know Futago Hime isn’t exactly a 2006 anime, but I wanted to wrap up the quick first impressions before the end of the year and the start of the winter-season, and I needed one more show. Besides, I just had to say something about it. ^^;

Baldr Force Exe

Watching the OP didn’t really make me enthusiastic about this show. It looked like this anime was going to stand in the footsteps of Ar Tonelico and Demon Bane, with a cute girl who somehow keeps clinging to some loser-like guy. Still, I was pleasantly surprised by this. Okay, it does feature a bunch of harem-stereotypes, who are all probably going to surround our main character, but the main character actually has an interesting personality. His best friend has just been killed, so he joins the organization responsible for this, hoping to find the killer. When he sees one of his former friends who did the same, though just seems to think that all of this is a game, we see some interesting scenes. Still, the concept is a bit vague. People get plugged into some kind of virtual world, and when you die in this world, you’ll die for real as well. But wouldn’t the designers of this would try to find some security-system in order to solve this problem? Like, block the amount of brainwaves when it becomes too high? Also, I’m not too happy with the cliff-hanger of this episode, seeing as the main characters suddenly runs into a sleeping beautiful girl, who wakes up and calls him onii-chan. That is not a good sign.

Winter Garden

Ow… I’ve been fearing this for a bit. Winter Garden indeed turned out into a slice-of-life romance. Not exactly my preferred genre. Of course, when certain elements are added, even slice of life shows can become interesting, though this show doesn’t even bother. It’s relying way too much on random collisions between our main character and her love interest. Pachiko (that was her name, right?) didn’t help much either. Even though she has a quirky personality, this show was just way too boring for me. Still, if you’re fan of Digi-Charat and like slice-of-life series, you might want to check this one out.

Fushigiboshi no Futago Hime

It’s strange how tastes change. I remember that I watched the first episode of this, back in the mid-2005, and it was really boring to me. However, after watching it right now, 1,5 years later, I totally loved it. This is another proof of how great Mahou Shoujo can be, and at the same time, how unloved. I actually had to use Youtube in order to track down the first episode, seeing as most of the torrents have stopped working. In any case, I really liked the quirky character and the seemingly inexhaustible amounts of energy of the two main characters, and not to mention that the characters were extremely CUTE! That only leaves the problem that this anime consists out of two series, with both 52 episodes. God knows how long it’ll take to catch up with that. there may be a chance I’ll blog every 13 episodes, if the remaining episodes turn out to be really good. Still, from the sample that Moetron posted on his site and which got me interested in this show again, things indeed look like they’ll be of the same quality for the rest of the episodes.

And with this, I’ve probably got almost all of the shows of 2006. All that’s left now is to wait till the Christmas-OVA’s get released. The current batch is another interesting one.

Tokyo Tribe 2

This anime has an interesting focus: a gang, or “tribe”, in urban Tokyo. It’s currently in conflict with one of the more powerful tribes, which happens to be lead by an old friend of the main character. The first episode was quite good. It has a nice atmosphere, something you’d expect from an anime with these themes. It’s a nice focus, though at times, the first episode went a bit too far with its disturbing scenes. One particular scene had a huge yakuza-boss raping a schoolboy and killing him in the process, which wasn’t too good for the overall mood.

FREEDOM

I wasn’t expecting much of this OVA, though it pleasantly surprised me. The art may look strange from a distance, but when you actually see it in animation, it actually works quite good, apart from one point perhaps. The creators have yet to find out how to synchronize the character’s mouths correctly with their voices, though this is a minor detail. The episode started off as a basic series about a boy, living on the moon and who likes racing in self-built engines. Despite being a 14-year old brat, he was actually interesting. He’s also got a nice rival, and when you combine the two of them, you get quite a nice combination. Still, it does seem that this episode served merely as an introduction, as the story really started off at the last scene, where the main character finds a strange picture about a girl and a couple of children. Another interesting aspect of the story is the fact that every child (and possibly adult too) has to wear a strange bracelet, which is used to control and monitor them, wherever they go. Even though the colony on the moon was fairly advanced, and looked extremely well built, our main character does feel locked up, and the anime portrays this quite nicely. While it’s far from awesome, this definitely will be an interesting watch. 🙂

Mai Otome Zwei

Heh, this episode already spawned a huge wave of posts about it. The question remains whether this OVA is so good that it deserves so much attention. Unsurprisingly, the answer is no. Everything’s all fairly basic. A hugely strong enemy appeared, who’ll probably be defeated by Ariko, fully powered up at the end of the fourth OVA. As a twist, it’s been turning various Otome to stone, taking over their form. Though unfortunately, the creators wished to focus more on action than on the reaction of the ones who were close to the ones who were petrified. I was also secretly hoping that the same kind of comedy we saw in the final episode of Mai Otome was included, though unfortunately, it stays with a few jokes which miss the mark about half of the times. Oh, have I already mentioned the rather useless fanservice? The only really good thing about this OVA was the conflict between Mai and Mashiro. The latter is finally learning that you can’t please everyone, though the former just can’t seem to understand this.

An unusual batch this time. Again, consisting of shows with both good and bad parts.

Nerima Daikon Brothers

Seriously. WHAT exactly have I just been watching? This show is wrong, so totally WRONG! Really, it’s still got me twitching. Okay, remember your standard harem in which we’ve got a random overconfident arrogant bastard who gets all the girls without any proper reason? Good. Now imagine him being gay. (Really, I’ve got nothing against gay people, but what this show featured was just not healthy). When Nabeshin suddenly appeared out of nowhere, I also wasn’t surprised at all. What we’ve got here is a musical comedy. I can imagine why nobody subbed it, as it looks like a living hell to typeset, seeing that the entire episode was just basically one big song. In any case, I’m very reluctant to say it, but I actually enjoyed this episode. It may not be the funniest comedy ever, but most of the jokes used didn’t miss their mark. But still… the pain… the horrible pain. I’ll continue watching this, if I can survive it. Oh, and in case you missed this on tokyo toshokan: the fansubbers labelled the torrent “Episode 1 – Released”. I’m not yet sure whether this was intentional.

Shibawanko’s Spirit of Tradition

Okay, if there ever comes a time in which you need to be brain-dead for two minutes, this series is the thing you need to grab. It’s really a series for little children, which teaches them a few things about the Japanese culture (like how to clean properly, but also how to decorate a guest room). It most definitely isn’t anything special, but it has an incredibly quiet atmosphere. And with only 2 minutes each episode, this anime doesn’t become boring either. But, if you do decide to check out this anime, let me warn you to skip the OP. Even though it’s just 5 seconds, it’s most definitely the worst part of this anime.

Souko no Strain

So, this anime takes place in a future age, with mechas, space travel and everything, and people are still being transported by horse carriers? There had better be a very good explanation for this. In any case, this anime makes the mistake of trying to induce sympathy on a one-dimensional character. We see a bit of the life of Seira, our main-character-and-mecha-pilot-in-training, but before she can be fully fleshed out, her brother arrives and kills her three best friends. It’s a pity, because only afterwards, she starts to get interesting. Overall, the first episode was garbage, but the second episode gave a few sparks of potential. The plot also doesn’t really make sense so far. Why would a school for future mecha-pilots be the perfect place to literally store girl who’s special in some sort of way? Isn’t it better to send her to a place with more protection, and away from underage people? Also, there’s just too many unnecessary fanservice.

A rather strange batch this time, with anime that many people probably don’t even know or remember.

Rakugou Tennyo Oyui

Ugh… can’t believe I missed this one. It aired during the winter-season, and got its first episode subbed around May, I think. It’s a fairly standard mahou shoujo, with characters who actually attempt to differ a bit from the clichés. Okay, there is a samurai-girl and the main character is rather hyperactive, but the others all have some kind of element which makes them interesting. For example, we’ve got a class rep with an obsession over our main character and we finally have a young genius who actually behaves like a normal person. I also liked that our main character isn’t the first one to discover her powers. I also like the contrast between the normal world and the medieval world.

Oban Star Racers

Can anyone imagine my surprise when I saw this one float by on DUTCH television? Dutch television, of all things. (For the ones who don’t know, Holland has an absolutely crappy anime industry. The TV-stations used to air some good series (Flint The Time Detective, Medabots and Digimon, both first series) but right now there’s barely any anime on, and the ones that do get featured contain the biggest garbage ever) This anime seems to be an international project, and I can imagine that it’s also being featured on German, French, English and American television. Well then, I’m not going to even bother to try and follow this series on the Dutch television, as the network it’s being aired on is notorious for its eccentric broadcasting policy (as of right now, every day features two episodes, and most of the time I’m at the university when these episodes air), and like every other show, it has been dubbed in Dutch, and it sounds horrible as usual. Still, the show itself actually showed promise. If there really went six years into developing this anime, it can become really interesting. Basically, it features races between aliens on strange terrains, and there don’t seem to be any rules present, so contenders can just try to blast each other out of the competition. I’m hoping that a Japanese version will pop up somewhere once, though there’s one major problem with this anime. During the races, it sometimes has the nasty tendency to use deus ex machina at the climaxes.

Koi Suru Suru Tenchi Angelique

Yeah, I got a bit impatient and decided to check out the raws. Well, I can understand why it hasn’t been subbed yet. It’s cheesy as hell. A goddess of some sort needs to have one chosen girl, so from all over the country, all beautiful girls are invited into a castle, in order to determine who the chosen one is. Well, she appears to be different from the other girls who were invited, as she somehow likes to hide her beauty behind a cap of some sort and some geek glasses. In the end, she gets discovered and she now gets surrounded by no less than nine pretty bishounen. Still, why did I like this? This show has some kind of atmosphere which has been really appealing. It may be my love for fairy-tale-like shows, but I found myself enjoying the first episode. And the character design was surprisingly good, although a bit creepy at times.

It’s an interesting batch this time. Each of these series has the potential to become great, but each of them has one or more major flaws. It’s interesting to see how these three turn out. Also, with this, I think I’ve managed to cover the largest part of the autumn season. All that’s really left to get subbed is Jigoku Shoujo (seriously, I can hardly wait for it) and a Spirit of the Sun. Oban Star Racers seems to be aired at some kind of special location, as no raws have appeared at all. It was the same case with FLAG, I think we need to wait for the Japanese DVD’s to come out in order to see it. Same with Silk Road Boy Yuto. Master of Epic seems to have delayed its anime a bit, such a pity. And Bikkuruman Hikkariden will probably never really get enough attention to even get its own raws. Next up is waiting for shows like Souko no Strain, Tokyo Tribe, Freedom and Afro Samurai.

Bartender

I’m a big fan of the various episodic case-based anime (Mushishi, Jigoku Shoujo, xxxholic), so I was looking forward to this anime. It follows a bartender who can make the god’s glass, a way to people’s hearts. Unfortunately, the first episode has yet to display anything special. It follows a stressful bar designer, but the entire story lacked emotion. Still, I’m probably going to end up blogging this. Jigoku Shoujo and Mushishi showed that you have to warm up to stories like these a bit for them to become really effective.

Kekkaishi

I have to admit, when I read the premises, I feared the worst. It’s a nice surprise that this shounen series actually turned out above average. It’s still got the cliché of having a fourteen year old brat as main character, but he’s been given unusual character depth. Especially the part when he was just a nine-year old boy was pretty impressive. If this anime loses the fourteen-year-old brattiness, things actually could get pretty good. I just hope that the creators manage to actually bring the love relationship between the main male character and main female character in a good way. Right now, all signs point to the fact that the main female character will end up being a simple damsel in distress. If this anime can avoid this, we’re in for something worthwhile.

La Corda d’Oro: Prima Passo

There’s one thing that always annoys me with anime like this: the important characters are the only ones with obscure hair colours. Anyway, this anime is sortof like learn to play the violin, the lazy way. We’ve got our main character who seems to be the only one who can see a special fairy because of no reason. The fairy then grants her a special violin which can make anyone play beautiful. Yeah, sure. I think that this anime doesn’t want to be taken seriously. Both the main male character as the main female character are as standard as possible, though the side-characters can prove to be interesting. Of course, our main character ends up winning the music competition, but seeing how the side-characters will face of against each other will probably be worth it. At least, if the creators give them a chance for this. Overall, it’s not exactly a bad anime. It’s just got some hugely annoying flaws which sortof ruin the mood. At least let the main character be someone who’ll work hard to achieve her goals.

I tried watching the raws for Bartender, though after only seconds I knew that I’d be better off with the subs. Seriously, that narrator had one strange voice. It sounded like a butler who likes to speak as polite and soft as possible with way too much enthusiasm. I’m hoping for subs to arrive soon, as I’ve heard lots of good things about this anime. I’m also still waiting for Jigoku Shoujo.

Ghost Hunt

It’s strange. On the surface, this revolves around another one of those arrogant boys who teams up with some kind of high school girl. Most of the times, this is a recipe for failure, but in Ghost Hunt, this premises actually works out pretty fine. We’ve got this guy who works as a ghost hunter who blackmails an ordinary high school girl who likes telling ghost stories into becoming his assistant. Their first case is solving ghost rumours which revolve around an abandoned building right next to the school. The side characters also were a pretty nice additions to the cast. It seems that more people have been put on the same case, which makes sure for a large amount of theories coming from different persons. But won’t they just disappear again once this case is over?

Hataraki Man

Okay, so this is a slice-of-life series about a rather enthusiastic workaholic. She works for a local magazine, and takes her work rather seriously, up to the point where she doesn’t really have an outside life. At times, she also changes into “Hataraki Man”, in which her work speed increases even more. Of course, this does lead to huge amounts of stress, and she indeed starts to hear things that don’t exist. Her co-workers are also interesting. Overall, it’s a nice series, though the fact remains that this is a slice-of-life. That isn’t really my genre, so I doubt that I’ll follow this to the end unless this turns out to be really good.

Code Geass – Lelouch of the Rebellion

Okay, and here we have our big-budgetted action-mecha anime of the year. It’s promising to be epic, with a world empire as the enemy. The character designs are done by Clamp, which means that each of the characters looks very appealing. I’m not too sure yet of the main character. The way the creators depicted him as a chess champion was rather bad. We’ve got this impossible setting and he manages to win without any trouble at all. If you’re going to use chess, at least try to explain a bit more. Also, by looking at the OP, the cast of characters seems to be huge. This can be a good think, if they’re used well. I’m not saying anything yet. You need to see more than just one of two episodes for shows of this kind to really tell their quality. Still, my initial verdict is good. It’s got great music, the terrorists seem interesting, and the way the Britannia officials are treating their subordinates just screams potential.

And another batch. The latter two turned out really well. But please ignore the first one. Still, all these three have in common that they’ve got a great soundtrack.

Super Robot Wars OG – Divine Wars

Heh, I think we’ve found the winner of the most cheesy fighting anime of the season. We’ve got a guy, who’s an expert at a video game in which giant robots battle each other. And guess what? This game has exactly the same controls as the mechas who defend the country. So, when he gets the chance to sneak in one of these mechas, without any permission or thinking, he just abandons his friend who’s been buried under a pile of rubble to go and fight evil bug-like mechas. Seriously, I’m feeling real pity for the girl to be that guy’s friend. What idiot would choose flying in a cool mecha kicking bad guys without any reason over helping a friend in trouble?

Red Garden

This is awesome. I’ve been looking forward to this show, and it doesn’t disappoint at all. Yes, okay. The character art looks different from usual, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. In fact, the characters look great, and unique. The anime follows four girls, who somehow have something to do with the murder on one of their classmates. So far, they look like they’re going to be great characters. The song in the middle of the episode also surprised me. Even though it’s obvious that the girl can’t sing, it was quite touching. This will definitely be a very fun series to watch. Oh, and this deserves to be awarded with “Best ED of the Season”.

Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge

I’ve heard from all kinds of sides that this anime rather ruined the manga it’s based on. But, having not read this manga at all, I don’t care. I’m glad to say that this anime really cracked me up. The main female character really promises to be an awesome character, and the four bishounen provided some really funny moments. The story is like this: four guys live in a mansion, and they get free rent if they turn the niece of the landlady into a lady. The only problem: this girl is an extremely dark, gloomy, solitary and scary girl. Another thing I really like about this anime is the soundtrack. Especially the OP, ED and the rock tunes which occasionally appear. One thing I don’t like is the male character design. Especially in close-up. Okay, it’s unique, but it’s also annoying. Overall, this promises to be a great series. Now let’s hope it won’t mess up like a certain Ouran.

More shounen-action series. Not exactly the best genre out there, is it?

Busou Renkin

There’s one thing I like about this series: its pacing. Okay, it’s a shounen-series, in which a boy gets superpowers because of a beautiful girl, and the two will probably fall in love, but it’s the little details which managed to save this show. Because of the pacing, the fights are nice and short, the main character’s whining doesn’t take forever (same with the main female) and the creators made very clever use while switching between scenes. But then again, apart from the pacing, this show doesn’t have much else to offer. The attempts at comedy are decent, but none of them actually made me chuckle, the fights, although short, lack any substance as well, and like I said. The main character will be falling in love with our main female character. One thing I did appreciate was the cast of side-characters. For probably the first time ever, our male main character actually has a sister who looks about the same age, instead of a obviously older or younger one, and his roommates actually tried to differ from the stereotypes.

Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi

The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the first episode of this anime was about the character designs. They just look so plain. The anime itself turned out mediocre. Perhaps the next episodes will be better, but this first episode wasn’t a good sign. My main issue with this is that our main character seems to have superpowers for no apparent reason. He just “awakens” when a big, scary monster comes charging at him. Ah well, at least his personality actually has been developed well. The kid-samurai also was a nice touch, except for the fact that you’d wonder how he managed to get such a high position at his age with his skills. I’ve also been asked about my opinion between Ayakashi Ayashi and Bakumatsu, as they both involve samurai-people who slay demons. If you don’t know which of the two you should check out: go for Bakumatsu.

Gin-Iro ni Olynsis

You’ve got to be kidding me… The fact that so little was revealed about this anime made me somewhat curious. I can’t believe how disappointing this one turned out. First we’ve got a bunch of kids who drive mechas. Shouldn’t they be going to school? Second of all, one of these kids is the main character. One of his team-mates is in love with him. He then runs into a beautiful girl, who probably aims to manipulate him. Then, yet another beautiful girl appears (our main female character) and she (guess what) suddenly starts acting all lovey-dovey towards him. Supposedly because he did something he can’t remember anything from. It involves a giant robot. Seriously, I’ve got so many issues with this anime, it’s almost impossible to list all of them. Stay away from this one, it’s garbage.

Another batch. This time with two shounen-fighting anime, and the final bishoujo harem of the season. Thank god I’ve done all of them now. I wish I could say the same of the shounen-action series, though. -_-

Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi

As I practice karate myself, the way this anime started really was an insult. One school with just black belts and one white belt?! What happened to the other colors? Also, all blackbelts team up against this white belt, and try to tease him out of the club? I don’t hope that that’s regular in Japan. In fact, anyone can learn karate, as long as they spend enough time to it. Our main character always loses because he obviously just started, and he’s just a kid. In any case, he meets up with a “beautiful” girl, she takes interest in him and he starts training at the school she’s training in as well. The women who appear also have character designs which scream “fanservice”. I was hoping for some kind of fighting-comedy, but even there this show fails. It’s just our main character screaming like a girl whenever he sees a strong guy.

Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Ugh… another disappointment. When I read the premisse, I thought that this could have been a nice comedy. Well, I was wrong. We’ve got a very small maffia-guy who bears suspicious resemblances to a talking baby in tuxedo and uses a chameleon for a weapon. Whenever he kills our main character, he gets reborn into some kind of hyperactive superman in underpants with a flaming forehead. After a minute, our main character changes back to nromal again. Good premisse? Horrible execution. First of all, the budget given for ths show is incredibly low. Second of all, our main character is a 12-year old brat. Third of al, this anime’s not funny at all. It just drags on and on, and even the small mafia-guy bets obvnoxious after three seconds. This is another one of those series to avoid.

Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru

Okay, I’m not sure whether to classify this anime as a yuri-anime, or a regular romance. During this first episode, we see our main character, who most definitely looks like a woman, get hugged by three different girls. But the fact remains that she’s a guy. The story’s like this: our main character has to enlist in an all-girl’s high school by his grandfather’s last wish. In order to do that, he has to dress up. One of his friends goes to the same school, and she offers to turn him into a girl. For some reason, he turns out more beautiful than most of the other girls on the school, thus becoming instantly popular. If there ever was an anime, aired in the fall-season, to introduce such a hate/love relationship, this has to be it. On one side, yuri’s always nice to see. For some reason, it works more often than it does with straight romance. On the other hand, this remains an anime in whihc a guy gets surrounded by tons of beautiful girls, there remains useless fanservice, and his friend, who knows that he’s a boy actually has a horribly horny personality. Right now, this anime can go anywhere, from incredibly good to incredibly bad. Why am I fearing that it’ll be the latter?