Fate/ Apocrypha
Short Synopsis: Masters gather to fight in a great holy grail war.
You know sometimes I think I will not get into a new Fate franchise when I start it, only to get deeply invested by the first few minutes. I was worried about A-1’s animation here and while the character designs are not the best, the animation was great. Now Apocrypha is more of a standalone though some Fate knowledge would be preferable. I say anyone watching this likely knows the deal by this point and the anime does fast forward through the usual basic info dumps. Seven Masters, Seven servants, holy grail, go nuts. This episode has me very hyped for the rest of the series and it’s confirmed to be two cours which means the light novel will be covered to completion. I hope A-1 can keep the quality consistent throughout it’s run. Loving the new servants, love the setup, love the Waver and Flat cameo(Strange Fake adaption foreshadowing?) and well…I love it all. Anyway I am following this journey right to the end so let’s hope Apocrypha manages to live up to the Fate monikar.
Potential: 100% (Yes,it’s Bias. But I don’t care)
Mario: Unlike that Fate fanatic up there, I am unfamiliar with the Fate franchise in general so I can only talk from what I saw in this episode. It was a setup episode which info-dumps everywhere, but they manage to propose the main conflict really quickly. The great Holy Grail War? Sounds good to me. Many Servants and Masters are introduced, yet we only reach about one third of them, I guess? Anyway, the animation is solid and I’m already intrigued in the red Master and his servant. This gonna be epic battles so if you’re already a Fate fan you know what to expect and I know there will be a lot to talk about later on as the plot thickens. I will give this series a 3-episode rule.
Potential: 50%
Battle Girl High School
Short Synopsis: Watch our anime! Buy our songs! Play our mobile game! Give us money!
A wise man once said and several hundred thousand people repeated that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Not too long ago, an anime aired that promoted a mobile game and tried to capitalise on the popularity of love live, kantai collection and Symphogear. That anime was called Schoolgirl Strikers. It made about as much impact as a cotton ball thrown at a steel drum. Thus here we are again, with an anime promoting a mobile game which is trying to capitalise on the popularity of love live, kantai collection and Symphogear again. Which is going to fail, again. After all, it’s a derivative of a derivative of likely another derivative. So what’s the problem? Too many characters who all have such stock personalities that they could be literal body swaps of other characters from other series. Pointless idol inclusion which is clearly there to sell songs. Lackluster battle animation and music. A plot so phoned in that you most likely have literally seen it all before. Do yourself a favor and just save yourself 25 minutes. We go through this pain so you don’t have to.
Potential: 0%
Mario: Anime industry, I know you will find a way to cash out as much as possible, but this is just way too blatant. Battle Girl High School shoots in every direction in hope that some of its bullets can land, but none works. In essence, this show is another magical show of good girls fight bad monsters, then they dress it up with high school, outdoor activities, idols and everything is all over the place. The action and the slice of life doesn’t work well at all for example. Then we have about dozen girls and each time the show switches to different girl’s groups they all seem just the same to me. I don’t even know what kind of show we are looking forward to the next episode since they end with the appearance with the new girl, but I’m sure that no one really care about this world or the characters or anything going on. An easy skip.
Potential: 0%
Keppeki Danshi! Aoyama-kun
Short Synopsis: A talented football player is also an obsessive germaphobe
There is an inherent problem with a comedy series when you base the entirely of your comedy around one joke. In this case each character introduced has there one gimmick which grows tiresome fast. Aoyama is a clean freak, another footballer is the straight man and the enemy footballer likes to show his abs randomly. Plus I don’t really like the concept of mocking someone for a personal phobia though in this case that phobia somehow has him be really popular? I mean girls are fawning over him washing his hands in the sink. Comedy I guess? The animation is also very limited as while the opening scene displayed so rather good animation, the rest of the episode had a number of animation shortcuts and artstyle deforming to try to emboss the comedy. I never liked that. It didn’t work in Drifters, it doesn’t work in shoujo anime and not even fullmetal alchemist brotherhood pulled it off. I originally thought this might be a pretty watchable show and there are those that might get a kick out of it. As for me though, I pass.
Potential: 10%
Mario: Like Tanaka-kun is always Listless or Haven’t You Heard, I’m Sakamoto before, Aoyama-kun show has only one main joke: this guy is a clean freak who happen to be genius at football. Everything revolves around that joke and its humor already wears thin at the end of this episode. I know that this is supposed to be ironic: because he’s a clean freak he won’t let anyone near him, hence his super-fast move that no one can touch. But here’s the thing: football is teamwork sport, having one great guy in a team can’t make the team excellent. This episode does reflect some of that but when the main guy is overpowered it’s rather boring to see. The animation is not great with too many still-frames and the characters so far aren’t memorable at all. I don’t see this joke funny in the first place so I’m pretty sure I’m not an audience target for this one.
Potential: 10%
Man I’m kinda happy I didn’t even try the first two (or last two, if you started with Fate).
I usually watch the first episode of almost every series with the exception of those that are 100% trash or maybe have an okay start but where I already know that they’ll bore me to death after a while which is what happened here and I guess I wasn’t wrong skipping them.
Looking forward to your other first impressions!
You know, I really love this first-impressions period. Others tend to compare it business-like: it’s the time where shows pitch their ideas, and we are producers who watch them and decide if we’re going to invest on them or not. I feel those first impressions more like wine-tasting: sip it, feel its ingredients and decide whether it’s my taste or not. It sounds more fun, although usually 60% to 70% of those are dead ducks per season. To be frank you don’t need to watch those dead ducks that could potentially give a bad aftertaste to your mouth.
Of course there are exceptions to that rule. Madoka didn’t got good until the 3rd episode.
I think also Monster took time to get going.
All in all, good or bad you have to nail the tone of the show on the first episode because it’s even worse when a show starts strong and then makes a left turn into filler or what Psycho Pass did halfway through with the school setting subplot.
“Potential: 100% (Yes,it’s Bias. But I don’t care)”
Scrolling through the last posts to see if psgels posted his monthly review I was reminded why I stopped reading this blog. It was this. Aidan, view this as you wish, constructive or not, I don’t really care: all your reviews are sumarised by that quote. You are not a critic, you don’t even try. You just dish out your opinion as anyone could do. What got me into this blog was how every review actually taught us something, be it in production or storytelling or anything. Psgels reviews actually TRIED to inform people and separate objective pros and cons from his subjective view on them. You could tell that, even if a series didn’t quite went with his taste, he could pinpoint what was done right for a certain genre or badly. You are either boost or bomb series in accord to your subjective view on them and that is neither educational or entertaining to read. I’ll give the new writers a chance, but seriously this kind of review is a shame.
Hey Random or do you perfer Ramdon? Good to see you after four years. Look I take any contructive criticism I can get and if anything I wish you said something to me before you left instead of just throwing this at me now, years later. First off, that potental rating is a joke and I usually joke about my bias with Fate. Honestly it’s my way of saying that my opinion on it cannot really be trusted because I am bias towards it so of course I will rate it highly. Even then in my blog posts I still critique it harshly. Because I do have massive love for the series.
I can see what you are saying to a degree. I do have a strong opinion. However I feel you are dismissing me on too little. I do actually make and effort to inform. In my Youjo Senki reviews I remarked on it’s connection to real historial events as well as my general thoughts on the Isekai genre. I also endorse series I have no interest in whatsoever yet see the value of. I do this with shows like Tsuki ga Kirei and Yuri on Ice. I put quite a lot effort into my Anime previews going further than Psgels did by checking the source of every single show. You say I boost or bomb shows depending on my subjective view but I have gotten flack for being overally critical of shows I geninuely loved. So what do you want from me?
I have tried to look over psgels old reviews to see what makes people give him this level of reverence but I am having a hard time seeing what makes me so much worse. The only thing I can land on is that I am just more assertive of my opinion than him. I can’t really do anything about that, it’s just who I am. It’s my style.
And…I wonder if this sums up why I’d never consider being a proper reviewer. I wouldn’t know what it would take to give a decent review. I can only give my impressions and thoughts. Write what I’m thinking and hope it helps. What’s the expression? “I don’t know art..but I know what I like.”?
And pleasing everyone is impossible. I even had issues with Psgels old reviews. He had his own bias, which was a little different from mine. For example, he was trying to give an objective review of jpop opening and ending songs when he didn’t have a taste for it. That’s like trying to review classical music when you don’t even care for it. Still, it is his opinion and I respect it. I just had to filter that bias out. And, in a way, his bias can be useful to gauge what people who aren’t into jpop might think of jpop OPs and EDs. Useful feedback to someone, perhaps.
Take Fate Apocrypha. Production Values…Good? Not up to say a big budget Evangelion movie or Ufotable/Kyoani on their A-game but definitely good enough to watch? No serious errors or issues noticed? It probably won’t be a groundbreaking runaway hit like Re:Creators but it’s a decent show which will appeal to fans of the genre and Fate franchise fans in particular.
It’s feedback. It may not be 100% accurate or fit the general consensus or taste but it’s an idea of what this show might be like, at least in one person’s eyes. It’s useful taken with feedback from other sources so you have a more balanced view. The more sources, the more information you have to make decisions. Then you decide how you want to use that feedback. Worth watching? (Y/N)
I don’t know what one can hope to expect from amateur reviewers who are purely doing this as a hobby. The standards produced are up to the writer, especially when there’s no contractual monetary compensation involved or some kind of professional standard or guideline to adhere to. Sure, they could up their game beyond what they know how to, or want to if they feel like it. But if it becomes too much work and stops becoming fun or worth it, they eventually burn up and quit. Like Psgels. Is one less opinion or source of feedback really a good thing? It may not be up to your standards but is it truly useless?