Sora no Otoshimono Forte
Short Synopsis: Our lead character lives together with a bunch of cute girls.
As much as I’d hate to admit it… this episode actually made me laugh, and it actually was pretty good at times. I mean, the direction, the ideas including this “new world” and “dream diving”, the huge production values, this episode was actually pretty good… despite the huge amounts of fanservice. This series has its mind completely in the gutter, but at least its fanservice jokes are actually inspired ones, compared to the same stuff you just get to see over and over again. Of course, this show does have its share of cliches, the male lead is beyond annoying at times and I doubt that I’ll be able to watch much of this series either way (last season I gave up as soon as the flying panties arrive), but still it’s good to see that at least there is a fanservice show that puts in some actual effort. This episode was a bit slow, and nowhere near as good as B Gata H Kei’s opening episode, but on the flip-side, I can easily see this one top shows as Asobi ni Iku Yo.
OP: Very clever start there. The song is badly sung, but at least it’s an improvement over the regular cheesy j-pop you usually here with these shows.
ED: Better than your average ED on a moe show, but still dull and pretty uninspired.
Potential: 50%
Super Robot Wars OG: The Inspector
Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights mechas.
This is a bit of a hard show to gauge for its story, based on just its first episode because it starts right in the middle of an action-scene without really much of a context: most of this episode consisted just out of a bunch of giant robots piloted by a bunch of kids and young adults, without much of an explanation of who they were beyond a bunch of one-liners that also still lacked their context. It’s all up to the rest of the series to make some sense out of this, because right now they’re just a bunch of one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs with rather bad character-designs. The action itself was pretty good, though. This episode was nicely paced and it kept my attention, which is what I can’t say of the first season of Super Robot Wars (which seems to be a completely different series, by the way: this episode showed no characters I recognized). Still, seeing as this series really didn’t make any attempt to make sense of what the hell was going on, I really fear that it’s just going to devolve into a random string of action scenes. And fanservice.
ED: Well yeah… it’s obvious what the creators were going for with this one, eh? Let’s just move on here…
Potential: 40%
Iron Man
Short Synopsis: Our lead character hits on women and flies around in an armoured suit.
The first thing that immediately stands out with this series are the visuals: no effort has been spent at all in making them look good. The amount of inconsistent and distorted faces leads to a number of embarrassing shots, especially with character-designs that are this detailed. At this episode, the animation itself was still good and detailed, but I fear what’s going to happen in the rest of the series, when the budget is going to force the creators to come up with a lot of still frames. As for the story: this series assumes you know Iron Man’s background: it is just another adventure in Iron Man’s life, focusing more on his future than his past. The acting was downright bad at times, and it also doesn’t look like the setting of the series will be important: Iron Man crashed randomly into concrete, blocking the road for countless of cars, and he just walks away with nobody finding it strange (“Screw the rules, I have money!”). The whole premise of a hijacked suit is standard comic book fodder, but with the right development it could be made into something interesting. The creators are really going to have to try, though. With the half a year of delay, the direction of this episode should not have felt as rushed as it did here.
OP: Pretty good music that fits Iron Man very nicely.
ED: Very good. There is little animation, but it actually has a good artistic direction compared to the actual series.
Potential: 50%
Such a negative review and yet you give it a high potential rating of 60%? Could you say why you think it has such a high potential?
Thank you for the heads up and save me from wasting 30min to check this out.
Nayrael: the benefit of doubt. At the end of the episode, it did pick itself up a bit with some nice enough action, so it could get better, but it really has to try…
Now that you mention it, 60% is indeed a bit to high for this one, considering how disappointing it ended up as.
I wouldn’t judge Sora no Otoshimono’s OP/ED just yet.
In the first season they had a different ED sequence and song for every episode, and the OP was poorly sung on purpose as it was one giant joke Tomoki version of the original OP. They’ll either switch to the real one next episode or god willing go on with different themed OP’s for each character.
The flying panties in sora no otoshimono? That would be episode 2 (I found it very imaginative in terms of fanservice). It’s a shame you didn’t keep on, because it was really funny.
The EDs in the first season were actually old classic japanese songs with a modern Jpop touch. That’s fun when you compare the old and new versions.
example:
-the old one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFFWXWJkfZM&feature=related
-the new one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPSJ2-utiAY
Sora no whatever was terrible and generic as hell. I really doubt the second season would improve it.
@Immelman That’s brilliant! I thought I did recognize hatsukoi from somewhere before…
Is it just me or does the Iron man anime seem to be goining a different path than the preveiws suggested.I expected more, especially with the Ayanami( from 07Ghost) looking bad guy.
You may be surprised to learn that the author of Sora no Otoshimono actually knows how to write good storylines. He proved that with his Watashi no Messiah-sama and Judas. And those had dark storylines and virtually no fan service. His latest work these days does include a lot of fanservice.
I think one of the things that makes the Anime of Sora worse than the manga would be the voice actor of the main character. I think perverted characters are funnier when you hear them in your own language. Take Fukuyama from girls bravo for example. His japanese voice actor just grates my nerves. But his dubbed voice is actually pretty funny.
There is a little more to Sora no Otoshimono that meets the eye.
You may be surprised to learn that the author of Sora no Otoshimono actually knows how to write good storylines. He proved that with his Watashi no Messiah-sama and Judas.”
He also put in a contender for worst time skip ever thanks to Messiah Sama.
@Westlo
I didn’t say that they were perfect storylines.
At Otakon, Madhouse’s chief said that they were working on REDLINE over everything else, and it affected the quality of Iron Man, as well as the other stuff they had been working on lately.
Of course, that doesn’t excuse Iron Man, but that better mean REDLINE is as good as I am hoping it to be.
Sora no Otoshimono forte OP was epic fun!Others have said it but i’ll say it too:it’s a parody of the season’s first op,the bad singing is done on purpose.
You say “huge amount of fanservice” but to me this episode has a mot less fanservice than your avreage episode of highschool of the dead
With regard to Super Robot Taisen…
You’re telling me, you didn’t recognize the ATX Team from the Divine Wars anime? While the ATX team was treated more as side characters in the Divine Wars anime, you don’t remember them at all now?
Given that Divine Wars is about 80% accurate to the game’s original story, so far, The Inspectors is about 80%+ ish accurate to sequel game, Original Generation 2 on the GBA.
Plus the episode goes to cover the entire story of the original Divine Wars as this is a direct sequel taking place not long after the first anime.
If you were confused by the prelude to the OP, it’s stated that these characters are jumping dimensions themselves. One of the best things I’ve enjoyed about The Inspectors anime is the effective use of lines. You say one-liners, but there’s a lot of detail in each line that reveals plenty.
They’re a few new characters that didn’t appear in Divine Wars,Shirogane’s new crew,Yuki&Carla(even they had a cameo), the blonde Shine,and a few other background characters,but the others had appeared in Divine Wars you know..Or did you only watched The Animation,which would be the sequel to this?
I was really surprised by Sora no Otoshimono Forte… while everything about it felt cliché to me on an intellectual level (and I HATE the protagonist) something about the pacing and the side characters and the mystery caught my attention. Dare I say, enough to watch another episode!