Seitokai no Ichizon
Short Synopsis: Our lead character has his own harem as a member of the student council.
I was fully expecting this series to suck. The way that along with Kämpfer this was labelled as the clichéd moe show of the season, and the utterly horrid character-designs made me expect the worst out of this series. However, two things proved me wrong in particular: first of all, for once we have a bit of a “realistic” portrayal of a student council: just a bunch of teenagers goofing off and having fun, rather than a bunch of elitist bastards that are perfect in every single way and are looked up to by everyone in the school. Second of all: the male lead. This guy is a complete asshole and knows it. He’s so different from your average male lead in these kinds of shows. In fact, these horrible character-designs were exactly part of the point of this show: as a parody. There is no way that you should take this series seriously, and instead it attempts to parody just about everything moe. And really, for me it succeeded so far, I laughed quite a bit. The dialogue just hardly ever seemed to stop and there always seemed to be something going on. My main concern right now is that the creators seemed to be a bit too edging on including a bit of drama at the end of this episode. PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THAT!!!
OP: Really cheesy J-pop song, but I think that that was the point.
ED: Very funny. Really quirky animation that works.
Potential: 50%
Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is the leader of a group of strangely-dressed people that fights some sort of occult group.
Whoa, we’re already 2 days into the season and I’ve already found a contender of the most intriguing first episode of the Season. Armed Librarians is no pretty series: the characters, background and CG don’t mesh at all, and don’t ask me why all of the important characters have such weird outfits compared to everyone else. Nevertheless, it’s the story that caught my attention, which has a lot of nice ideas thrown into it. While at first sight it may seem like yet another band of heroes that fights generic evil organization, but the magic takes itself surprisingly serious: when the lead characters fight faceless goons and they cut off these people’s limbs they really start screaming, rather than just scream and fall down. The bad guys also make use of human bombs, talk about radical! There are lots of different characters, all with different intentions. This really looks like it’s going to be a series that’s not going to seduce anyone with its visuals, music or snappy direction. Instead, the creators are just going to focus on the pure story. I can appreciate that.
OP: Very generic ALI-Project song, but very nice and original visuals.
ED: Just a slide-show with a song, neither which are that special or catch attention.
Potential: 80%
Kämpfer
Short Synopsis: Our lead character can transform into a hot chick and fights other hot chicks.
Oh, the pain. Where to start with this thing? The absolutely horrid character-designs for the male lead? The bland action? The horrile voice-acting? The moe stereotypes? It’s really series like this that give anime a bad name. Here we have a guy who can transform into a girl who then fights with magic fireballs. His love interests include at this point a shy girl and the most popular girl in school (who at this point are already in love with him), the acting his horribly bland and uninspired and it’s chock-full of incredibly shallow fanservice. Watch this if you want something to laugh at, stay away otherwise!
OP: Horrid, cliché, cheesy, a waste of the few good shots of animation with the stuffed animals.
ED: Fanservice galore and really weird hip-movements! The music is also not much better.
Potential: 0%
I guess I wont be watching this then. Thanks for the warning.
The moment I read the synopsis for this series. I’ve already decided I won’t give it a shot. Since I feel that it would be more of a fan service rather than story.
Thanks for the brief critic for this series. At least I’m sure that this series won’t be that nice… For me.
If you had read the manga, you would have had properly low expectations going into this ^_^;
When I was watching it, I was thinking “This was written by a committee.” Not good. I’ll give it one more episode.
Like every season – trash goes first.
I miss the “short synopsis” part on your quick first impressions, that one little phrase was very helpful (it helped me decide whether I continue reading or jump to the next series).
Sapphire: so how about this? I originally removed it because it was basically me, trying to reduce every show to a generic stereotype, but if people actually found it useful I can bring it back. ^^;
I tried to watch it, I really did, but it is hard to make more generic and bland anime than this. It’s not even bad enough to be funny, just cliché-slurry with all creativity carefully removed.
T.T Which fucking pervert made this?! Now is all perverted and shit! The manga was awesome. This is shit. It’s like taking Shion, filling it up with fanservice, skirt/chest shots and taking out everything that ever made it good. I mean wtf was with that shooting a hole in the skirt and then zoom in on that?! I demand a remake! By someone who is NOT perverted. I will just watch it for as long as it is bearable, and only because I want to see it in color, and for the fights. After that, it’s back to the manga for me.
psgels: Thanks! ^^
Wow that’s the first anime I’ve ever seen that has suicide bombers. Well looks like I’ll be keep Armed Librarians on my radar for a awhile.
You’re being too hard on KAMPFER. It’s a fighting girl semi-harem show, but it’s actually pretty good.
First, the set up avoids the standard harem dynamic: no useless guy as such.
Second, the fact that the kampfers shift in personality and/or sex makes it fun, especially as they know this and have to deal with it. So the shy girl is kind of the ultimate tsundere as she gets all aggressive when she transforms.
Third, you have to love a show with a magical girl mascot named Black Seppuku Bunny and the fact that all the mascots have their entrails dangling out.
Fourth, the show was well directed and fast paced. They got through a lot of story in episode one, with multiple character intros. Not boring.
Good point about the short synopsis – yes it was reducing the show to a stereotype but that’s what made it so hilarious. I wouldn’t decide about watching or not watching a show just based on that but please keep writing them.
Kampfer was actually good. The greatest thing about it to me is that there’s not freakin panty shots that is in your face. Well, I have not even seen one in the episode. The fanservice is rather subtle compared to many others including Princess Lover.
Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra was pretty awesome for the first episode. Nothing trash about it.
Seen Kämpfer; turned out to be much better than psgels claimed ^_^;;; Some nice voice actress jokes and a few Gundam references helped.
There doesn’t seem to be anything noteworthy about Kampfer. The introduction was somewhat interesting, but it was unlike the rest of the show, was visually discontinuous, and ultimately left a plot hole in the story. The rest is generic battling harem material and not very funny jokes. The gender-swapping is really old, and you would have to crank it up to eleven to gain any traction, which is never going to happen in an anime. Although seeing the protagonist in the female form jerk off a talking stuffed animal (its “intestine”) seemed a little risque.
I don’t see how making references to other anime does anything to salvage the show. In Gintama or Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei that is a staple, but if this was meant to be a parody show I missed it entirely.
I agree that it’s less annoying with the panty-chasing than a lot of these shows and the weak protagonist at least can talk to girls without urinating on himself, but that’s just damning with faint praise.
KAMPFER – YAY!!! ANOTHER PERSON WHO DOESN’T APPRECIATE THAT HORRIBLE I-DON’T-KNOW-WHAT-TO-CALL-IT-ANYMORE!
Armed Librarians – you’re the first blogger that I’ve seen who had actually like it that much *_* YAAAAY! (most that I see are “drop” or “dropped” or “dropping” =_=)
It’s a shame that Armed Librarians has such low production values, it was one of my most anticipated shows and the story in the first ep seems quite solid, but I kept getting distracted by how ugly everything looked. Is it from some unknown animation company?
I would hardly call the last bit of Seitokai Ichizon “drama”. If anything, it’s an attempt to “sincerity” in a parody-mess, and it CAN blend extremely well.
As a matter of fact, I would hardly call the protagonist a self-conscious asshole either, but rather a cocky & funny charming and charismatic arrogant bastard.
I’ll give Kämpfer a go XD, ^-^, been too long since I last saw something I could watch with zero brainactivity 🙂
OMG, Seitokai no Ichizon had me laughing my balls out five minutes into it. Was expecting it to suck but turns out a worthwhile watch.
The Book of Bantorra is one ambitious series. I missed the Phantom/Canaan antion so I’m locked into this for the mean time. David production’s second hit after RisPara? We’ll see.
I was also half-expecting Kampfer to suck big time. Come on it’s a show complete with transformation-scene-ala-sailor-moon. At least there weren’t pantyshots thrown in randomly. I, at least, appreciate that.