Grisaia no Kajitsu
Short Synopsis: Our protagonist joins a school that has five troubled girls in attendance.
AidanAK47’s impression: Grisaia has all the elements to cause many to write it off as a typical harem anime. Protagonist who only wants a ordinary life? Check. Joins school with several female beauties? Check. Panty shots? Sigh…check. The usual line-up of haremettes such as the loli, tsundere, maid and kuudere? Double check. However beneath the shallow premise lies something a little more interesting. For one, despite our main character edging close to gary sue, it is delightful to see him brush off harem clichés with cold indifference. Any man that walks in accidentally on a girl changing and says “Who called me a stripper? Its not my birthday today.” has my respect. Plus props to the girl for not shouting baka, not resorting to abusing the man who only walked in because of her negligence to lock the bloody door and even laughing it off. The end of the episode also hints at darker things to come. I for one hope it proves to be something more than harem show no.56302.
Potential: 60%
Trinity Seven
Short Synopsis: Our protagonist goes to hogwarts.
AidanAK47’s impression: Nothing new to see here. While it did have some mild interest going in the beginning with the black sun, soon it used every cliche in the book. School setting, protagonist who happens to have huge potential for power, haremettes, accidently grope, the walk in while girl is changing/bathing… You have seen it a hundred times before and likely a hundred times again. I say if you need a time waster this season it’s not a bad show to settle on but frankly there are shows more worth your time. I would also like to point out that trinity refers to three, yet there is seven people in this so called trinity. So the title is contradictory.
Potential: 25%
Inou Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de
Short Synopsis: Our protagonist is in a club with cute girls with superpowers.
AidanAK47’s impression: You would never guess this was studio trigger. Yes, that studio trigger. The makers of Kill la Kill, little witch academia and worked on Gurren Lagann. Here is their next show and it’s about a guy in a club with cute girls. Alright I wouldn’t give Trigger grief for this one. If it’s one thing that trigger needs, it’s money. Kill la Kill suffered because of a lacking budget so I certainly cannot condemn these men for making something for the money. That said having watched it I can say that I didn’t hate it. I am ashamed to admit that I may have even enjoyed it. That said I thought that one of the main draws of this club stories is how the club gathered and was created. However here the club is already created and our members gathered. On top of that they all seem to be romantically interested the protagonist. I honestly question how they will fill up the rest of the season when they have pretty much cut out the starting material. Well all I can say is that I hope this makes a ton of money, so trigger can put it forward to something more worthwhile. (Like say….Lucifer and the biscuit hammer, hint hint.)
Potential: 35%
I only played two VNs in my short VN-reading career: Fate/Stay Night and Grisaia. I still need to get around to playing Steins;Gate…
Grisaia is way more than an ordinary harem show. I check polls and it could be considered the most popular eroge VN in the West and one of the most popular VN overall.
And for good reason. Like Madoka Magica did, Grisaia is using an original cliche genre (school, slice-of-life, harem) to hide most interesting, darker undertones that once people see it, they will be hooked.
Now I’m worried because it has been “confirmed” for only 13 episodes and this VN is as long as F/SN, so I don’t know how 8bit will squeeze it in. It won’t be pretty. At best, it could use one of the girls’ routes and then do a split cour (I hope).
We’re on the common route of the VN, and the anime will on it for a while before heading to one of the girl’s routes. Will be interesting.
Not interested in any of the shows listed here.
The anime is hinting heavily at taking one of two routes for these 13 episodes. If that route is Yumiko, abandon all hope, her route is really boring. If it’s Amane, buckle up for a wild ride.
Yumiko’s route was pretty terrible. Only highlight in that was the H-scenes. And I normally don’t care about those but when the whole route was banging on about Yumiko’s daddy issues I will take what I can get.
Very disappointed to see psgels not as active anymore. I enjoy reading his reviews and opinions. With these knew “reviewers”, I think the site might drop in popularity. – R.I.P. Psgels 2014
Care to elaborate on our weaknesses? Sure we are not psgels, but now instead of getting one mans opinion you are getting a diverse set of opinions.Even us newbies could have indivual styles which people could come to appreciate. Psgels was once a man such as ourselves after all.
Surely you arn’t the kind of person to come in only to tell us that was all suck and leave, are you?
Of course not. I’m not saying you guys suck. I guess I’m just one of those people that like things to stay the same. I was just more interested in psgel’s point of view and not others. Sometimes his opinions were really biased, but that was one of the only things that I didn’t like about him. I’ve been a long time lurker since 2009. I would comment here and there, but now I can only comment on the reviews not the chat box that is in the top right corner because I’ve been “blacklisted”. But anyways, I will continue to come to the site. Wish you guys luck. ;D
I guess you could say I am being biased too! hahahaha
Was pretty sure I was going to drop all 3 after the first episode.
Haven’t dropped any, Grisaia felt intriguing, Trinity had the MC steal the show by not being a pussy and Inou, well, let’s just say that the Dark Dark thing made me laugh.
Inou Battle is a curious brand of mediocre. Doesn’t go into what makes an harem/club romcom BAD but still doesn’t do anything to be good either and only comes off as rather boring. The first half of episode 2 was what made me drop it altogether though – ten minutes straight of puns which probably were already lame in Japanese and came out utterly incomprehensible to my inferior gajin brain sealed the deal.
Pretty much agree with all your points, especially about an LBH anime.