Fall 2021 First Impressions: Mieruko-chan, Muteking the Dancing Hero, Tesla Note

Mieruko-chan

Short Synopsis: High school girl plays “You can’t see me” with spooky ghosts (or, perpetual poker-face screams internally.)

Amun: I don’t normally do horror – I think the only horror/guro shows I’ve seen are High School of the Dead, Shiki, and Another…true fans will probably disagree with my classifications of those. However, the first half of Mieruko-chan’s premiere played as I would expect from good horror setups: subtle tells, spooky foreshadowing, plenty of passed opportunities for jump scares. The big reveal: spot on, great stuff. It’s the falling action where I start to scratch my head a little – what is this show, really? I’m just concerned about the overall point of the story – if it ends up as an oddly specific fetish to seeing scared girls act brave, I’m out. As expected from the genre, there is some service, but it’s quite manageable; not quite what I would call tasteful, but not overboard. General verdict: pretty good start, but the overall direction of the show remains to be seen.

Potential: 55%

Armitage: In contrast to Amun above, I love all kinds of horror media. I know the tropes inside out. I also know that it’s categorically difficult to make anime come off as genuinely scary. I understand that the shlocky nature of this genre leads to crossover with giallo tropes like the fetishization of female characters. But again, in slight disagreement with Amun, I feel that this show overindulges in its perversion – a character’s boobs basically get more screen time than her face, we get a gratuitous shot of the MC taking off her underwear in a restroom and we also get a couple of crotch shots from below and behind. It’s too much, honestly. But I would still be willing to look past all that, if this show actually utilized the other half of its runtime doing what should be its main objective: scaring the viewer. And it does try but really, everything just falls so flat. The monster designs are not scary, the lighting and color palette are too bright, the setups are so generic, it all just feels like a slog that has you wishing for even a jump scare or something. Yeah, that’s how desperate I got. And would not be putting myself through more of this.

Potential: 10%

Muteking the Dancing Hero

Short Synopsis: A new kid in town transforms into a dancing hero to save Neo San Francisco from the evil Taco Tacos corporation.

Mario: Yes, Muteking is as silly as it sounds. It takes advantage of every opportunity to be over the top, be it the quirky designs, scream-until-it’s-funny humor, bizarre sense of logic, and a lead character who literally dances away evil and saves the world. Its nonsensical but bright tones remind me of series like Akiba’s Trip – dumb fun shows that match the energy of a teenage market more than the old me now. The show occasionally rises above the average when it depicts colorful backgrounds – the city Neo San Francisco looks dazzling – but it’s bogged down by the silliness of the plot and characters that are… I’ll be honest, kind of insulting to the audience. Muteking is like the first sip of a soft drink: it overwhelms you at first but only leaves you with an overly-sweet aftertaste. If you don’t mind all that, though, you’ll be fine with it.

Potential: 20%

Lenlo: Muteking is… it’s… I don’t… This is certainly a show. As a reboot of a franchise from the 80’s it makes sense why it has the energy it does. And as what is, effectively, a Tokusatsu show the tropes and structure it has are familiar. But I’m not really a fan of Tokusatsu. So while the 80’s aesthetic is nice and the wackiness is amusing I just can’t get into it. It’s like this season’s Back Arrow, a show trying to revel in absurdity to hide the fact that it doesn’t have anything else going for it. If wacky popcorn fun is your way to relax then I think this will be great for you. But for me it’s just going to be a waste of my time. The OP is pretty fire though, I’ll give it that. Absolute jam.

Potential: 20%

Tesla Note

Short Synopsis: Ninja girl trains for her whole life to become a spy and investigates Nikola Tesla’s crazy inventions.

Amun: I didn’t know anything about this show before watching the first episode, except that I really like Teslas (the cars). However, that positive word association isn’t nearly enough to carry me through this drag of a first episode. Oh look, high school ninja girl whose training to save the world (although, the best part of this episode is when she was worried her grandfather was nuts – I can’t complain just because of that). Aside from Shinigami Bocchan from last season, I don’t normally stomach 3DCGs, and Tesla Note isn’t going to add to those exceptions. What’s weird is there are some conventional background characters, but the mains are crappy 3DCG – I would have preferred it the other way around. The action is as good as it could be (some spotty animation here and there), but the plot and the characters just feel so generic, I struggled through. Pass from me.

Potential: 0%

Mario: Gosh, this thing looks abysmal, and I can totally see where the compirasion to Ex-Arm comes from. Just look at this cut to see how bad the production looks. In its defense, the show is still competent at displaying goofy facial expressions, but its 3DCG looks amateurish in every other department. The writing is not good either. As spies, the main character and her partner have James Bond levels of subtlety and Shinji levels of stubborness. As far as the plot goes, it’s mildly intriguing as they used the real figure Nikola Tesla, but it still feels generic by the end of this episode. I won’t mince words here, Tesla Note is terrible. Its story is nothing to speak of, its characters are loud and the visuals remain the “talk” of the show, albeit for a rather embarrassing reason.

Potential: 0%