Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is an average schoolgirl who becomes a mahou shoujo.
Ah, this one passed the first episode test as well. I was a bit afraid since this is Shaft and all, but this episode was fresh, solid and had none of the things that usually annoy me about them. The soundtrack by Yuki Kajiura is excellent as expected, and the visuals are actually used well here: this show has a good balance between simple, regular character designs on one side, and twisted images and background once the magical world in this show pops up. The creators really tried to make another one of those dark mahou shoujo and they really succeeded in contrasting two extremes with each other. Now, there still is the danger of Madoka becoming too pure and her co lead becoming too perfect and serious, but there’s still plenty of time to flesh out their characters. Overall, I’m impressed. Now I really want to ask Shaft to keep this up, because I don’t want to be disappointed by them for the umpth time.
OP: Yuki Kajiura composed this? Hmm, this is some of her weaker work. Visuals have both neat and cliched ideas?
Potential: 80%
Yumekui Merry
Short Synopsis: Our lead character runs into a dream eating girl.
Now this is more like it! I mean, it’s not like Yumekui merry doesn’t have its cliches: it revolves around teenagers, the male lead has multiple romantic interests including a childhood friend whom he lives with, but unlike Infinite Stratos which offered nothing beyond that, this show makes sure to not glorify these cliches, and put in as much interesting stuff as possible. Seriously, this was an excellent episode with some terrific direction and camera work. The way in which it brought the lead characters’ dream world to life is really well done, and it’s especially good at using these tiny details in its environment, like a random can lying around. The entire episode was chock full of creativity, and the action scenes themselves were stunning. The characterization manages to both create charming characters during the light hearted moments, but also hit hard with the subtle yet powerful emotional scenes. Bring on more giant fish-bones!
OP: No cheesy j-pop! Instead it’s got great background art and a pretty decent tune.
ED: Unfortunately cheesy J-pop, but the visuals are interesting here…
Potential: 90%
IS – Infinite Stratos
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the only guy of his class.
Ah, this is one for the production values. The battle scenes are well directed and exciting and the soundtrack is really solid, courtesy of Hikaru Nanase. … so why was it wasted on this kind of crappy story? I had hoped that this episode would give a more interesting story behind this whole series rather than just the “guy who is surrounded by girls” (mind you, with the right execution it could have become a great series despite these cliches), but this episode was just… unbelievable. It’s entirely about harem hijinks. The antics between the lead characters are all horribly dull and typical, with the same spoiled brats, fangirls, childhood friends, tsunderes and “walk into shower”-scenes that we’ve seen a thousand times before. Beyond that: nothing. Throughout the entire episode, there were no hints whatsoever at anything deeper and the only thing that wasn’t utterly boring was the action scene at the beginning. Even the OP just kept hinting at nothing but silly fights and harem hijinks. This episode seemed to go on for bloody ages because of this. The final nail in this one’s coffin was the very bland characterization: nearly the entire cast is just a walking stereotype and acts incredibly predictable.
OP: Bland J-pop. They got Hikaru Nanase here and they don’t even use her properly…
ED: Even blander.
Potential: 15%
I wasn’t surprised by IS. The trailer didn’t grab me at all.
Madoka Magica and Yumekui Merry? Great start.
Cant wait to see those 2… as soon as you said Yumeki Merry would be directed by the director of Casshern Sins I was sold
And Madoka yeah, Yuki Kajiura FTW
Hey Psgels. One question: Madoka Magica doesn’t have anything ecchi in it, does it? Just curious, because I want to know if it is before I watch it. If it is, then I’ll pass.
I’ll probably pass on Is but I’ll definetely watch the first episodes of those two other series. I can’t wait to know which series you’ll cover, since those will probably be the ones I’ll watch. Also, I was wondering how many animes you were gonna review this season?
Firechick: Madoka Magica only has one part that’s ecchi, and that’s the transformation sequence that played during the OP.
Jeremy: I’ve got room for eight series to blog. Nine when Heartcatch Precure ends.
Oooh, I’m happy they went with the somewhat dark approach to Madoka Magica. The early promotional art made it look too sugary sweet for its own good, so it’s nice to see they want to do something interesting with the genre.
I don’t agree with one thing. Yes, there has ALWAYS been that annoying shower-walk-in-then-get-beat-up scene, and I hate it. But how many times has the main lead defended himself, and actually fought back before? Give the guy SOME credit, at least he’s not a wimpy harem lead with no reason for any girl, let alone a whole army, to like him. Beyond that…
Madoka:
Homura could use some help with her factoring.
Did they say somewhere that Kajiura Yuki composed the music for the ClariS piece? I would think she was just involved in the soundtrack and the Kalafina product, but I’ve done zero research. It doesn’t sound like her music, anyway.
The show seems darker and more interesting than I anticipated. At first glance the characters seem a little boring (though Madoka’s mother shows some promise). The character designs are kind of dated, but they look interesting against the later backgrounds. I’ll at least give it another episode.
Interesting. I’ll watch the first IS episode and decide for myself but it went into the “likely to be dropped early” pile for me.
I’ll be giving Madoka a better chance than I first thought I would though.
I didn’t think Madoka Magica’s OP sounded all THAT Kajiura. Heck, it’s sung by ClariS, the same people who sang the theme for Oreimo.
oh yes,dark mahou shoujo! Gen sure shows no mercy here,even though it’s mahou shoujo anime! He’s just screwed it!
Gonna download it soon!
Yuki Kajiwara has nothing to do with OP song of Madoka. it was composed by different person.
Gekidan Inu Curry seems to have quite a big role in the production this time. I wonder how it will turn out.
In fact, infinite stratos was better than i expected..seriously it have almost 50% potential for me. And it can finally turn in a nice guilty pleasure 🙂
Infinite Stratos are like Sky Girls,with better animated mecha fights,but much much worse characters.
Madoka Magica really surprised me cuase well,it being a SHAFT anime after all.I hope they can keep it up,cause the enemies at the end was really creepy,and works very very well. Oh and Madoka’s interaction with her family was also very nice to see.
Just watched the subs of all these 3… Wow, as expected this season will rock
Madoka is the best thing Shaft has put out in YEARS, for once their weird style actually fits and adds to the mood
Yumeki started out rather bland but when the Chaser showed up it become super awesome, and yeah, Jouji Nakata = WIN
As for IS, I was expecting it to be a pile of crap but actually found it entertaining… That fight scene at the beginning was gorgeous as well, so yeah, lets see if it just turns into a generic harem or something more interesting
Infinite Stratos looks like it will be a paint-by-numbers mecha + harem story. Typical Japanese sword mania and dreams of being world leader in some new kind of technology, nothing that we haven’t seen in anime before… I’ll watch it as a guilty pleasure, out of habit, but I’m not expecting anything above Zero no Tsukaima level.
The way Yumekui Merry is going, it might turn out to be one of the most original and interesting anime of the year – certainly a great start for 2011. The animation is a bit too washed out and the protagonist isn’t really good at anything except running away and moaning “Merry, Merry” (Merry what?), with his power of dream prediction being pretty fail, but the dreamworld setting feels rather original (compared to the stock settings we usually get at least). “Amnesiac girl falls from the sky” has been done to death but it does not feel forced in this show. Plus, Merry looks adorable.
Now this is quite a nice surprise, I definitely was not expecting to be interested in Yumekui Merry or Madoka Magica but now i actually wanna watch them.
After watching the three episodes (well….not totally watching Is) I am rather impressed. My favourite of the buntch is defintely Yumekui Merry. Nothing seemed forced, the visuals were amazing and nothing is better than fighting cats so yay, looking forward to that one. Madoka was surprisingly dark but I don’t know how I feel about the characters for now. Finally, I tried watching Is, the fight at the beginning was cool but it just went downhill from there. Love Hina was a good harem anime…this is….ugh.
Sweet, I look forward to reading your views on Merry episodes as I felt the same, loved it and it’s Soul Eater stylings, as well as Merry herself was great with a great design as was John Doe with that badass design and Alucard voice 🙂
Also liked how non-exaggerated the they did the sequence where she falls on him, it’s a cliche way to collide the separate threads and instead of making it more cliche they just got it over with to kick it off without embellishing it with any of the usual extra tropes.
Plus I thought it was nice and made the main character come off better how at least in the first fight he didn’t just butt into the fight prior to it starting “thinking” he has to protect someone who was about to show they’re a fighter and who was already confident of her skills going into the fight clearly not expecting to need help. And while nicely avoiding making him annoying in that way they still also succeeded in not portraying him as a crappy wuss either when he took action and whacked/grabbed the grunt cat with the cannon lol. So somehow he avoided both usual extremes and had a personality. Hopefully he keeps this up.
Yeah, IS’ production values across the board are pretty great, it’s a shame it looks like they are probably going to avoid telling a bigger story with them in favor of devoting most of the story time to harem antics.
Haven’t seen Madoka yet.
Am I the only one to be reminded of hack/sign from the scene in Madoka Magica before the opening? especially when the insert song started playing?
Finished watching first episode of Madoka Magica. It looks good, reminds me of Pandora Hearts. I’m going to give Merry a try. Thanks for the review. =)
So Mahou Shoujo Madoka actually turned out to be good huh? Not bad. Woah..Yumekui Merry has potential too? I was’nt impressed at all by the trailer..so i was going to pass it, but i’m really looking forward to it now. Thanks for the great (and handy) reviews.
Okay…Madoka Magica totally blew my mind out of the gutter. I’M WATCHING IT!!!
Yumekui Merry was disappointing. Hope that the second episode will improve a lot.
Yeah, I have to agree that I’m really exited for Merry and Madoka, both look extremely promising. I mean usually I wince at the very sound of a mahou shoujo transformation sequence but Kajiura and the kick-a environment was plenty awesome for me. As for Merry, you don’t know how happy I was for the show when she fell on him…and the scene WASN’T transformed into an awkward hormone-fest.
I was seriously surprised by Madoka Magica… Was expecting a typical mahou shoujo series but… the background art and music. Wow. The character designs almost don’t fit. ^^;
As for Yumekui Merry… interesting concept. I like the costume design for the female lead… And again, nice BGM! You’re right when you say this season is full of good music…
i think the soundtrack was excellent, BUT they used it way too much. it could have been used more carefully.
hope this show stays solid o_o
wut. You gave Yumekui Merry higher potential? It screams harem and a Shana/Alice lead -,- although I was impressed and you bet I’ll be watching it, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica is just pure win. And we’re not sure if the black-haired girl is the partner of the leader while you do make a point about Madoka. Everything else. Music, animation, setting…pure win. Characters are family-friendly with script something everyone of all ages could enjoy.
My jaw dropped ^^
Infinite Stratos should have been an one episode OVA. The main character is a bad student and clearly doesn’t want to be there. He should have been kicked out in the first 15 minutes. Oh well…
I wasn’t a big fan of Yumekui Merry, but I could really appreciate the great direction and good pacing. It’s story is original enough to make a pretty good series too, as long as keeps progressing.
My first impressions on Madoka is that the first episode is pretty decent and the premise seems good. A tad boring but that was mostly build-up from what I can tell. Its art, however, is beautiful so how well this one does is anyone’s guess.
Yumekui Merry, damn! Already got me hook & sinker. Interesting premise, nice mystery, gorgeous art and a perfect pace. Couldn’t ask for anything more for an opening episode. This one smells like a winner.
IS Stratos seem bland but the animation seems good. But ugh, another violent childhood friend *sigh*. But so far, it’s just fanservice though mecha fights and making a ridiculous premise of him being the only guy in school. Let’s just say I don’t have much hope for that one.
Op not by Kajiura