Some quick first impressions: Juusou Kikou Dancouga Nova, Naruto Shippuuden and Rocket Girls

Juusou Kikou Dancouga Nova Okay, the good news, this isn’t as bad as I expected. The characters so far do look interesting somehow. The bad news, however, is that this seems to have every single shounen-mecha cliché in the book. Children who are being recruited to pilot a giant mecha? Check. One standard incompetent lazy impulsive idiotic guy, combined with three other highly skilled teenagers? Check. Characters aimed at fanservice? Check. Mecha controls which can be understood with just looking at them? Check. No preparation at all in the military? Check. An enemy who just “happens” to appear? Check. Racing cars of the good guys never break while others do? Check. Like I said, this series hasn’t been painful yet, but how can the creators ever hope to create an interesting story with these kinds of elements? The battle at the end of the episode was just ridiculous, while the two girls are just way too perfect for their own good. Naruto Shippuuden I decided to check this out once more, before finally deciding whether to drop it or not. Still, it pleasantly surprised me. For now, it’s actually good enough to continue. Okay, it’s nothing special, but I really like the improvements the creators made on the music. Especially the tracks featuring choirs sounded great, and the OP was amazing. 🙂 The question still remains whether the second season will be an improvement on the first one. The first season had three major disadvantages: it dragged, the fights were way too dramatic, and Naruto was the most annoying main character ever. Now that he’s grown up, that last part should have disappeared a little, but I wonder whether this series can catch my interest. This episode also showed signs of the beginning of a Naruto-Sakura couple. I certainly do not hope the two of them end up together. Let him get together with Hinata or something. Anyway, I dropped the first season around episode 200, since I stopped caring about the fillers. Is there anything that happened in the last 30 that I need to know if I want to watch this? Rocket Girls When I first read the concept about a girl who had been asked to become an astronaut, due to her weight, I seriously wondered how the creators would make the rocket-company desperate enough to pluck a random girl off the street. Well, it seems that they found three reasons for this. The first: the manager is crazy, short-minded and impulsive. The second reason really became clear when the rocket exploded in mid-air. The third reason? Pure coincidence. The girl ends up involved with a small fight between the employees, gets dragged along by someone fleeing from the rocket-base, and then she gets noticed by the manager because she has the perfect weight. Overall, not very convincing. Especially when you add that to the fact that a girl from the local tribe and a girl from the main character’s school will be accompanying her. If you’re looking for a story that makes sense, then stay far away from this one. Still, I have to say that this was a pretty interesting watch. I like the sarcasm in Yukari (the main character) and the others. The story may make no sense, the CG may look fake, there may be a bit of useless fanservice, but somehow, the first episode was strangely enjoyable. (Oh, and the manager has the funniest cigarette-lighter. XD)]]>