Some Quick First Impressions: Acchi Kochi, Sengoku Collection and Shirokuma Cafe

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Acchi Kocchi

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a random high schooler.
This is the type of slice of life series that I have a really hard time enjoying. This was basically an entire episode consisting of random incidents of the characters doing random stuff, without much coherence between them other than “they go to school” or “they go to the game store”. A lot of this episode was just random, but didn’t really show much of the characters other than their basic personalities. It’s good to see an actual couple for once (they are, right?), but this overall just was too boring. The moe antics also didn’t really help, because the girls in this show all try way too hard to be cute. Yes, all of them.
OP: Who on earth found it a good idea to make these poor voice actors sing. This sounds terrible.
ED: “Hey, you know you can buy figures from this series? We’re just here to remind you! *wink wink, nudge nudge*
Potential: 20%

Sengoku Collection

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the guy who united Japan when it just consisted out of a number of warring states.
Well, I didn’t think it was possible, but yes: there actually is a series this season that is worse than Queen’s Blade and Naruto SD. Good lord, Oda Nobunaga, what have they done to you? I mean, I knew that this series would turn famous people from the Sengoku era into moe girls, but I didn’t think that it’d be this bad. This series’ Oda was the most annoying tsundere I have seen in a long while. Throughout the entire episode she did nothing but whine and attempt to act cute. even though she didn’t really do anything. Her acting was terrible, and to make matters even worse: she somehow ends up in modern day, and runs into a common loser. This is the worst kind of wish fulfillment. It’s dull, bland, it doesn’t try at all and just relies on the fact that it has a bunch of badly delivered moe antics in the hopes of selling DVDs. I mean, I know that fiction is about taking artistic liberties with history. However, this gimmick isn’t even new. People have been turning famous figures into annoying cute girls for ages now. Are there really people who get turned on by this?
OP: “We couldn’t be bothered to animate the whole thing, so here are a bunch of uninspired slide-shows.”
ED: Very badly sung, especially in combination with those instruments.
Potential: 0%

Shirokuma Cafe

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a panda.
Holy crap, where did this come from? I mean, every season has its set of series that get announced later than usual, and which are usually these bad and minimally produced gimmick series. In this season however, they just continue to surprise me with their solid execution. Shirokuma Cafe turned out to be a bizarre slice of life series, but it’s actually fully animated and the characterization here really is surprisingly good and realistic. The creators here perfectly captured the laziness that you’d expect from a panda without reverting to cliches. It was a tad annoying at times, but this really was surprisingly heart-warming and the jokes were pretty good too. The entire series is based around a cafe, with the three main characters being a panda, polar bear and penguin. You’d expect that all three would end up working there, but no: the polar bear is the only employee, the rest of the characters just are guests. As for what the panda’s job is… well, just watch the episode if you want to find out.
OP: There aren’t many good OPs this season, but the ones that are good are really good here.
ED: Stop-motion using go pieces. Great idea!
Potential: 75%

Some Quick First Impressions: Gon, Arashi no Yoru ni and Kuromajo-San ga Tooru

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Gon

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a dinosaur.
Forget about the title. Forget about the main character, he’s just some random kid with superpowers. No, this series is about a bear named Ussu. This is the guy who made this show surprisingly entertaining for a kids’ show. I was really fearing after having to sit through that Naruto SD show, but these series can actually be funny. Aside from Usu, there are a couple of other characters in this show who had some good jokes, the albatross in particular. Gon really is just a vehicle to bring everything together. In the meantime though, he also is very annoying. Oh, and if you’re wondering what the heck mammals are doing in a dinosaur show: the show also doesn’t explain that. It’s just a random island with a bunch of animals in which a dinosaur randomly appears. This series is obviously very childish and all, but here is the thing: aside from Uchuu Kyoudai (which isn’t a real comedy anyway), this was the funniest first episode i got to sample this season so far.
OP/ED: Warning: do not listen to these songs, unless you want them to get stuck inside your head for the rest of the week.
Potential: 75%

Arashi no Yoru ni

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are polar opposites.
This is what I mean by kids series trying harder: this series has an actual story that challenges the characters, rather than being random fighting or hi-jinks. Movies have already gotten this down, but there are very few TV-series like this, which is why I’m glad this was made, even though it already was adapted into a movie. What I hope is that this show will expand on the movie’s themes and allow everything to flow more naturally. This episode gave a good start: it was pretty similar to how the movie started, only with a bit more dialogue here and there; a good start. I especially liked how this episode focused on how forced this entire premise is, but in a good way. In terms of animation this series clearly is inferior, because the CG can look quite ugly at times, but at least the characters move around a lot here, and they do so differently from your average CG-show. My big fear of this show will be the overacting: this episode kept it from going overboard, but there is potential for this to dive into straight-up melodrama.
OP: Um, guys. A little too much of romantic undertones here…
ED: The same “let’s have the cast walk nowhere”-ed that you see everywhere (this makes three this season already)
Potential: 70%

Kuromajo-san ga Tooru

Short Synopsis: Our lead character does magic stuff.
So, this turned out to be a story of a girl who gets harassed by a black witch and ends up as one in training. Episodes are only 7 minutes long, and it’s all fairly plain and all, but for a kiddie show it could have been worse. If you want your kids to be quiet for 10 minutes, this show is good bait for this. For older audiences though…. I don’t think that this show has much to offer. A lot of stuff in this episode just happened for the heck of it, and this show is also pretty bad at explaining why everything is happening, with pretty minimal animation. It’s not as bad as with the horrid flash shows, but any less animation and this would be a slide-show. Also, the teacher in this series is an asshole. In the end, the creators could have taken more chances. I mean, Risky Safety was a show with the exact same premise, but it was 50 times more adorable and creative than this here.
OP: Cheese
Potential: 40%

Some Quick First Impressions: Lupin the Third – Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna, Medaka Box and Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka – Of The Dead

by psgels, posted in Lupin III - Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna, Some Quick First Impressions

Lupin the Third – Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a thief.
The visuals in this series are incredible. The character designs, the background art: it all looks gorgeous and very artistic, and the animation really brings them alive. And this episode revealed something more: you know Shinichirou Watanabe? He’ll be the music producer in this series again, ON TOP of directing Sakamichi no Appolon this season. The soundtrack also was full of Jazz songs that fitted the show really well. Beyond that, this show will probably be a collection of stories around Mine Fujiko, with the center around adventure. This episode was quite interesting and entertaining, and especially Lupin and Mine Fujiko played off each other quite well. This episode showed how the two of them met, so you don’t need to be familiar with the Lupin franchise at all to get this series. There is a lot of nudity in this series however, but thankfully it’s nowhere near the usual fanservice you see all over anime. My one complaint is that the side-characters are rather one-sided. Let’s hope that the next episodes can bring some change into that, because this really deserves it.
OP: One of the most unique OPs I’ve seen in a while. And also the best.
ED: A bit less interesting, though still a good song.
Potential: 90%

Medaka Box

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a student council vice president.
Well, I do admit that Gainax’ execution helps with a premise like this. This episode was over the top and moved fast, which is definitely preferable to seeing another really slow-paced high school series. Overall there are some things in this episode that I disliked, like the camera’s uncanny ability to focus on Medaka’s boobs, or how she’s just way too perfect as a character, and most of the rest of the cast perhaps isn’t the most interesting, but they do have potential for later. At the very least the creators spent quite a bit of time on the main couple and how they were when they were kids. That’s a good thing for an opening episode to do. This probably won’t be anything amazing, but by the looks of it it’ll still be pretty entertaining.
OP: Unimpressive J-pop
Potential: 70%

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka – Of the Dead

Short Synopsis: Our lead character lives together with a bunch of cute girls.
This episode really reminded me why i came to dislike Kore wa Zombie so much: it doesn’t even seem to be trying! This show is supposed to be a comedy. Half of this episode was nothing but repeating jokes from the first season and random out of place slice of life, which also just copied the first season. The other half was just building up to one joke, which was incredibly forced and half of which was also copied from the first season. There were two new characters introduced… both of which immediately got added to Ayumu’s harem. And then there was the animation: the creators blew all of the budget on the OP, making the actual animation of this show very dull, again with scenes blatantly copied from the first season. It’s clear that at this point, the creators have completely run out of inspiration and therefore are trying to fill their time with these gimmicks. Comedies should be bold! They should be entertaining and well thought out. Not these uninspired moe hacks like this.
OP: At least this is well animated. But Studio Deen, you’re putting your priorities at the complete wrong place.
ED: Oh come on…
Potential: 10%

Some Quick First Impressions: Recorder to Randsell Re, Naruto SD – Rock Lee no Seishun Full-Power Ninden and Queens Blade Rebellion

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

Recorder to Randsell Re

Short Synopsis: Our lead character stands out.
So, time to check back on how this series turned out. And my impression of this series has gone down even more. We’re supposed to be 14 episodes into the series already, and all this episode did was re-establish the premise of this show: having a very tall younger brother and a very tiny younger sister. What happened in the previous episodes, really? This felt like watching the first episode all over again. There doesn’t seem like any progress was made at all. I know that the episodes are only 2 minutes long and all, but this is a bit too extreme. On top of that, I like my comedies to be well acted. This was the entire opposite of that. Especially the brother was hard to watch.
ED: Dull song. And why the sudden fanservice?
Potential: 0%

Naruto SD – Rock Lee no Seishun Full-Power Ninden

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a bad Naruto fanfic character.
Oh god… make it stop. One of the hardest types of episodes to sit through with these kinds of first impressions is the bad comedy. I mean, Queen’s Blade was terrible, but it still was kindof bearable due to how bad it was. Naruto SD however, is a series that fails miserably at being entertaining. This was 25 minutes of sitting through horrible jokes. Over and over again. The creators of this series have no idea how to tell good jokes. More often than not we just have Rock Lee act random for no discernible reason, it keeps repeating its bad jokes over and over, and this show thrives on making random toilet jokes that fail at being funny. The characters are all incredibly annoying and probably the only value this holds is for diehard fans of the Naruto franchise. And yet for some inexplicable reason this show finds it necessary to explain the basic premise of this show over and over again.
OP: Cheesy J-Rock
ED: Also dull aside from the random dancing.
Potential: 0%

Queens Blade Rebellion

Short Synopsis: Our lead character boobs.
Look. I’m not against all fanservice. In fact, the series I’m looking forward to the most this season will probably have tons of it as well. However, what I can’t stand are the series who use it as an excuse for being terrible. It really is a shame that pasting a bunch of boobs everywhere guarantees dvd sales like this. This episode was by far the worst first episode I had to watch this season so far. The action was terribly choreographed and made no sense. And really: I don’t care how many famous voice actors you got for this show; the acting still is abysmal. Oh, and I have to congratulate this series, for pulling the dumbest twist I have ever seen while sampling these first episodes. Really: imagine a girl with big boobs (clearly visible) in a short skirt and very long coloured hair. It takes until the armor around her boobs breaks for everyone to realize her gender. I… have no idea. In more than six years of blogging, I have never seen stupidity this big.
ED: Poorly produced J-Rock song. Not to mention the terrible visuals.
Potential: 0%

Aquarion Evol – 14

by psgels, posted in Aquarion Evol

I was surprised how this episode started out as a very dark aftermath. It was very different from the previous episodes of this series, and a lot of time in the first half was dedicated to making Jin’s death sink in. I’m not used to that from Shoji Kawamori, especially when it happens so early in the series. Then the second half arrived. Yup, that’s him allright. No mistake about it. And Mari Okada’s influences make it even weirder.

The moment where the headmaster suddenly announced everyone to bury themselves, this show just got surreal. I’m not sure what kind of symbolism it is to have the cast sleep right next to the dead while they’re mourning for a falen friend, but it was glorious anyway. The way in which Mikage suddenly appeared as well was an awesome cliff-hanger.

Zessica by the way is heading into a wrong direction. She’s now at the point where her entire character is “I like Amano”. The rest of the cast here is great, and this episode used Mikono’s uselessness well, but Zessica is just the same old third wheel without any chance that you see everywhere.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Some Quick First Impressions: Zetman, Kimi to Boku 2 and Accel World

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, Zetman

Zetman

Short Synopsis: Our lead character has superpowers.
Whoa, I really love the visuals in this series. The animation during the fight scenes in particular was just amazing. Most first episodes are very crisply produced with a lot of inbetween frames. The animation here however put in something extra. The animation was wild and vivid, and sometimes quite messy, which lead to some awesome camera angles. The character designs also work much better than what I first expected based on the promo art. The faces of these characters have depth, so to speak. My big fear for this series was that the script would move too fast, but that too turned out surprisingly well. The first parts of this episode moved very fast, but the points where it mattered, this episode really took its time to tell its story. This is pacing that’s actually well balanced, rather than all over the place.
ED: Catchy, but a bit too much synth. Why the hell are you spoiling a twists that’s coming up, though?
Potential: 90%

Kimi to Boku 2

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are a bunch of teenaged boys.
AS much as Chizuru gets on my nerves… I yet again have to admit that this episode was excellent slice of life. In fact, this was one of the better episodes of Kimit o Boku due to how incredibly natural the dialogue was. In particular the second half was really well written, even though it was just characters talking to each other. It’s the kind of slice of life where nothing happens, yet things happen. Instead of a forced moral at the end, the episode just ended with the cast doing something random they felt like. Again, Chizuru still is really annoying, and the random cats still are pretty pointless, but this was a typical episode of Kimi to Boku, which somehow at the end of every episode uses its annoyances to do something interesting with the characters. If you can stand the obnoxious characters, you’ll like it. Otherwise: don’t bother.
OP: Either my laptop couldn’t follow the frame-rate, or the visual effects were rather cheesy this time.
ED: Why that cat?
Potential: 80%

Accel World

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a creepy stalker.
I had no time to also watch the second episode that came out, but based on just the first episode, I really fear that this show will be… annoying to watch. It’s a shame though, because there is some definite potential in the setting for some good science fiction. I actually liked the way in which this series combined the real world with its fictional virtual world on top of it. So why on earth did they have to settle for a harem around such a wimpy protagonist. I like how for once the main character is overweight (although he literally is the only character in this show who is like that), but he was really annoying to watch with his annoying whining throughout the entire episode. This episode already introduced two potential love interests who take interest in him for very flimsy reasons, which really isn’t a good sign for the romance in this show. The rest of the cast also was pretty bland, with the worst being the worst portrayal of bullies I’ve seen in a while with three guys who are constantly bothered by constipation or something and just randomly assault their victims, even in the midst of dozens of people. I’m at this point really doubting whether or not to continue watching this: there definitely are a few good things here; the animation is also very good, but I just know that the cast will get on my nerves a lot.
Potential: 50%

Phi Brain – 25

by psgels, posted in Phi Brain

Okay, so this episode broke about half of Newton’s laws and it was a bit sappy at times, but considering this series, that’s not particularly surprising anymore. What is surprising however is that this episode ended without any hint for the next season whatsoever, aside from the next episode preview. Not even a looming shot of the new villains. The preview that did show them, however, and again I still have no answer to a question I’ve been asking for weeks now: how on earth will they be able to top this?

In any case,Rook’s story finished here. I found it interesting that the creators found a creative way to use Nonoha in this episode, with her sweets and all. The most interesting part was the interplay between Kaitou and Rook during the puzzle here. One thing I really wonder is why Rook decided to leave on a journey of all things. “Yeah yeah, I’m repenting for what I did. To prove it I’ll go on a holiday…” – what?

Overall, I do think that the strange leaps in logic at times are what prevent this show from really becoming outstanding. Sure it’s about crazy puzzles and all, but the suspense of disbelief also wants something, especially when the characterization is this good.
Rating: * (Good)

Hunter X Hunter – 25

by psgels, posted in Hunter X Hunter

And with this, we enter what I found to be the worst part of the original Hunter X Hunter TV-series. It’s not like it was badly executed there, but it just took so bloody long and there were just too few characters who really went anywhere beyond the dull training arc. It’s here where the new series can finally set itself apart, and I wonder how it’ll be able to do this, beyond being a lot shorter.

As for the actual episodes, I’m going to nit-pick again, because both versions of the series took nearly exactly the same content for this one episode, although there were some differences here and there. The most noticeable was Killua: in the 1999 version he just waited behind the door while he let the butler play with Gon for a bit. Here, he gets impatient to see Gon and goes out on his own (right when the butler finishes his test by the way, so the outcome didn’t really change). What caught my eye in particular was how he lighted up when he was about to see Gon.

What this version did better was how they handled Canary. In the 1999 version, this was done with a bit too much cheese (with cheese by the way, I mean heavy acting that fails to engage me and instead ends up a bit silly or detracting). The part where this series is inferior is where Gon cuts his eye to let out some bleeding. It again has to do with this series’ bizarre concept of pain, because Gon slices himself in the same way he’d slice a piece of meat for cooking. The 1999 version however, did it much more subtly.
Rating: * (Good)

Some Quick First Impressions: Saint Seiya Omega, Folk Tales from Japan and Uchuu Kyoudai

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions, Uchuu Kyoudai

Saint Seiya Omega

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is destined to save the world.
Oh yes. This show knows how to deliver good action. This entire episode was almost non-stop gorgeously animated, with a wonderful use of its character designs, colours and camera angles. There is detail both in the giant blasts that the characters fire at each other, and the subtle character animations. This will be a series chock full of eye candy. On top of that, the creators also succeeded in putting a lot of emotion into just this one episode. Toei, I’m impressed. The one thing that seemed to be missing in this episode however, was context. Who are these people? What are they fighting for? I mean, I understand that they’re protecting the world and all, but what world, and why should I care about it? Beyond the conflict of having two parties who fight each other, there was surprisingly little else in this episode. For an opening episode I can understand that you’d ignore this, but the next episodes should put some focus into that, then.
OP: Nice upbeat rock tune, again with some nice eye candy.
Potential: 80%

Folktales from Japan

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters come from classic folk tales.
Yes, this is actually a kiddie show that actually wants to tell stories, rather than sell merchandise. The stories here involve money, but apart from that there is nothing commercial about this series and instead the creators decided to bring life to a collection of folk tales that people used to tell children. The animation in this episode was realyl simple, but I appreciate what it’s trying to do. As for the stories themselves, they’re nicely told for a kids’ series, but when you start to look at the moral of each story things get a bit weird. At first sight it’s the standard “bad karma will bite you back”-stuff, but this series takes it a bit too much beyond the comfort zone: if you do good stuff you will be rewarded with vast riches, but if you do bad stuff, or even look like a bad guy, you get to live in poverty. I’m not expecting Mouryou no Hako or anything from this series of course, but the way in which nearly every good character got incredibly rich in all of the three stories in this episode was a bit too much.
OP: They actually got a good singer for this.
ED: Another “let’s have the cast walk”-ED. Good singer, though.
Potential: 40%

Uchuu Kyoudai

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to be an astronaut.
Now this was good. This was really good. First of all, we’ve got another series where the main character is a guy in his thirties. The kid who showed up in the promo art of this series is just there to symbolize his inner child and how he grew up. The meat of this series really is about how this guy is going to go into space. And that with a series that will be 51 episodes long. Considering the length, this episode did an amazing job to show who this guy is, what drive him, how he changed over the years and what his personality is like. This episode would have even be sufficient if the series only had 13 or even 6 episodes. The main character himself is really likable, and this episode had a number of very good jokes around him. Yes, this series set a very big standard for the rest of the series this season.
OP: A definite contender for the best OP of the season. Amazing use of images, and a great song
ED: The same “let’s have the characters running over a dull j-rock song”-ED that you see everywhere.
Potential: 95%

Some Quick First (and uh.. Fifth) Impressions: The Legend of Korra, Ginga he Kickoff and Natsuiro Kiseki

by psgels, posted in Some Quick First Impressions

The Legend of Korra

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the legendary chosen one.
Allright already! I give in; I’ll watch the first episode of this Avatar sequel. Normally I don’t cover American animation, but with this there were so many people requesting it. My impression is, that it’s indeed a pretty good series based on this first impression. The animation is really good: it is inspired by anime’s level of detail in its art, yet manages to retain the amount of fluidity that’s typical of American animation. There are some cliches in the cast of characters, like the spunky kid in the middle of a dignified Asian-inspired setting, which is quite common in these types of stories, and Korra herself definitely has her annoying moments. I am intrigued however by the politics in this series, although I have no idea what role the main character will end up playing in this. Everyone keeps talking about how she’s special as the avatar, but most of the problems that are presented in this episode don’t really seem like problems that can be solved by someone who just happens to be able to “bend” multiple elements.
ED: Very fast credits. Good music.
Potential: 80%

Ginga he Kickoff

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wants to found a football team.
Uh so yeah. Don’t ask me why, but we suddenly got treated to the fifth episode of Ginga he Kickoff. As for what happened to the first four… I have no idea. So I just watched the fifth episode of this series, and really, it’s fairly representative of the nature of this series. There were parts I enjoyed. The cast of side-characters is fairly nice. Better than Area no Kishi in any case. It just has one really, really big problem: the main character! Good lord, this kid is horrible. He keeps yelling and whining throughout the entire episode. In this episode he wants a certain person to become the coach of his football team, and do you know how he ends up doing it? By whining and whining and whining until the coach can’t take it anymore. Yes, the parents in the world will be thankful to this series.
OP: Very cheesy J-Pop
ED: Another dull song.
Potential: 10%

Natsuiro Kiseki

Short Synopsis: Our lead characters are a bunch of middle school girls.
Okay. I am intrigues. I’m definitely going to keep watching this series. I’m not going to say why; you just need to watch this episode for yourself. Instead I’m going to talk a bit about this episode in general. Natsuiro Kiseki was a series that I really feared would just become another copy and paste moeblob clone. However, the execution is different from your average series. There is actual tension between the characters, and not in the usual clown-straight man pairing, but it feels much more natural than usual. It still has its problems of being way too angsty. There is in particular a blond girl in this show who needs to lay off the angst, because she kept causing drama that could have been solved by proper communication. Despite that though, this series doesn’t feel random, but the characters are actually talking about something. Some characters are a tad cliched (the deadpan girl in particular), but others are actually pretty inspired (the green-haired girl in this show is actually an interesting variation on the “ditzy girl”-archetype).
OP: Dull J-rock.
ED: Dull J-pop (for those who are new to this blog: yes, I kindof dislike these genres)
Potential: 80%