Some Quick First Impressions – Back Street Girls, Shichisei no Subaru and Banana Fish

Back Street Girls

Short Synopsis: Yakuza boss turns 3 yakuza underlings into popular idol girls

Lenlo’s Review:

I have to say, Microsoft Powerpoint has come a long way since the early 90’s. I was so confused by this series, I legitimately stopped to check if I hadn’t paused it or something at one point. Turns out, no, it just has less frames than a weekly manga chapter. Seeing that though, I decided to try something. I went and read the manga. And you know what? This anime is just fan-colored panels slapped into a powerpoint presentation. Like seriously. This is adapted almost 1 for 1 from the manga. I was so surprised I skipped straight past anger, bargaining and depression and went straight to acceptance. Seriously though, just read the manga. It will be faster. And if you have to have the voices, just treat is as an audio book or something. Slap it on your kindle. You’ll probably have a better experience.

Potential: 0%

Aidan’s review:

Now, I don’t consider myself an expert on animation production but just this once let me offer a piece of advice. If you are going to create an anime of a manga then maybe you should…I don’t know…animate it? I swear to god this was literally a slideshow of the manga on screen, absolutely bare minimum effort required to technically classify this as animation. No, this is as one reddit user put it, moving manga. Well at least I can feel safe in know they series won’t be taking any talent away from JC Staffs other anime this season. So the presentation isn’t doing the show any favors which causes the jokes to fall flatter than they should. I like the general idea of this story but overall it’s just the same joke repeated over and over. I wouldn’t bother with this one.

Potential: 0%

 

Shichisei no Subaru

Short Synopsis: a group of childhood friends come to terms with the loss of one member, in RPG

Aidan’s review:

Wow this game sounds terrible. You really can tell the author hasn’t really much experience with MMOs or just doesn’t really care about fleshing it out to a point of being believable. I mean one of the party has the power to see into the future…how the hell would that work mechanically? Also a boss that literally deletes your character if you happen to die to it? Who in their right mind would design a boss like that, literally no one would risk it unless it had some game breaking reward. Well I guess hackers would just cheat it but I guess hackers don’t exist in this world. But allow me to be blunt and say I hate this anime, I hate it very much. There is bad anime but then there are anime which are like a personal insult to me for seeing something so lazily written with nothing really thought out just makes me furious. This is a story where the author wants to put his drama down without thinking out any of the aspects to make it feasible. The plot points are so agonisingly obvious that I can map out the character love pentagram just from the first episode alone. This story is clearly gunning for a mixture of Anohana and Sword Art Online and does neither to any level of satisfaction. For the RPG aspects are ludicrous and the drama so forced that I want to grab the writer by the neck and scream in his face “Learn how to goddamn write you stupid ass HACK!” So yes, quite unpleasant. I may be as uncouth to say it made me rather hot and bothered. Well, pip pip, tally ho, fuck this show.

Potential: May this show burn in hell and apologise to writers everywhere

Lenlo’s Review:

So… are we entirely sure the UI and town/backgrounds wasn’t lifted wholesale from SAO? Is this made by the same people? Am I being punked? To be serious for a moment though, this series has issues. I really can’t add anything onto what Aidan said except this: The most fun/entertaining part of Subaru was listening to Aidan as he watched it. Really, the thing I look forward to most each season is the possibility of something like this that just drives him up a wall. If you don’t care about things making logical sense, of laying down and following set rules, you might get some fun out of this. I don’t expect the drama to be all that great, its very melodrama-ey and simply not as well crafted as Anohana was. I actually think the ridiculousness of the MMO aspect takes away from what is basically a rehash of Anohana’s mostly grounded (excluding the ghost) story of coming to terms with loss. But the twist at the end was unexpected and kinda makes you wonder where its going to go. Consider my interest peaked enough to hear how it goes, but expecting the worst. Also, someone help me convince Aidan to watch it through the season.

Potential: 15%

Mario’s review:

Well, people are right to suggest that Shichisei is a mixture of Anohana in a Sword Art Online RPG settings, even the characters resemble the cast in Anohana, let alone the twist that brings us to the present day. It does run through many forced developments and strain credulity a bit, like the love interest bit and WHAT THE HELL? THEY ARE PRIMARY SCHOOL’S KIDS. But at the same times I’m not lying when I say this twist does grab me and I want to see how they deal with it in future events. The characters, then, will have to shoulder all the emotional weight, and as far as this first episode goes, NO, they still aren’t fleshed out beyond their established traits yet. It might get frustrated later on, but for now, I’m mildly interested to see what comes next. I’d say that the best way to know if the series works for you is to see how’s your response regarding that plot’s turn. I don’t mind another Anohana-inspired drama if it’s done right.

Potential: 40%

 

Banana Fish

Short Synopsis: A young gang leader becomes embroiled in a drug-related plot and befriends a Japanese reporter.

Mario’s review:

No question about it, Banana Fish is kool and stylish. From the NY settings to this mafia feud to the compelling characters, Banana Fish grabs you in the first moment and never leaves you.The story so far is fast-pace and thrilling, without ever sacrifice the characters’ motivation and they provide just enough information for us to process. For only the first episode, Ash proves to be an interesting lead, confident, sharp but has enough ‘weakness’ to make him believable. I’m not too fond on the other lead, Eiji though. So far he’s dragging the show down and that yaoi tone is so obvious it’s rather distracting. It helps that the production is sublime: many striking shots and the animated sequences at the bar are simply stunning, and the memorable soundtrack with the gritty backdrop make this the best-looking and stylish show we’ve seen so far this season, and that Banana Fish, whatever it is, will prove to be a wild ride for our Ash and Eiji. Sign me in for this wild ride.

Potential: 80%

Wooper’s review

Now this is more like it. Banana Fish feels like it was assembled by a creative team that actually gave a shit about the material they were handed. Check out the graffiti and the sunlit streets that bring its stylized version of New York to life. Listen to the show’s musical palette, which moves seamlessly between genres to feature bass, boom bap, electronic, and even metal (there’s only one dud in the bunch, during Ash and Dino’s first conversation, but it’s quickly forgotten). Most of all, check out the godlike fight scene in the billiards bar near the end of the episode, which lends credibility to the idea that these characters play hard and live harder. There’s no question that MAPPA delivered with this episode, but the manga’s tendency to forego establishing panels bled into the anime’s sense of speed, which hurts its score a little bit. Once the initial conflict between Ash and Arthur/Marvin dies down, hopefully the show will stop and smell the roses for a bit, but with 110 chapters to adapt in just 20-something episodes, we may be stuck on fast forward for the majority of the series. Still, this was a very exciting premiere. Everybody go watch Banana Fish!

Potential: 75%