Kanokon
Xebec has really fallen. Once they were a studio that brought quality-series like The Third and Hitohira, though this season their only focus seems to be fanservice. Really, I don’t know what’s left to say about these series in which the male main character suddenly gets loved by a bunch of beautiful girls for no reason. They’re bad, and just depend on their fanservice to make as many otaku buy their DVDs as possible. At least, I have to give this series credit that the dialogue seems a bit more inspired than usual series of this kind, but that’s to be expected with this being based on a light novel.
Blassreiter
To be honest, this episode didn’t give me any reason to condemn this series as an utter failure. There were a few problems here and there, where the animation looked rather unnatural, but overall this turned into a very capable action-series. And therein lies the problem, though. It’s been a really long time since I watched a “good” action series, and something really has to be wrong when the most satisfying action scenes I’ve seen for the past year came from Power Puff Girls Z. Action-series like Devil May Cry, who had great first episodes also turned out to consist of nothing but fillers, and while Gurren Lagann was entertaining, it still wasn’t really what I was looking for. Blassreiter definitely has the potential, but I first want to see whether it won’t screw up its future episodes before I get my hopes up too high.
Kamen no Maid Guy
Well, it’s a good thing that this seems to be a season of shoujo anyway, so I didn’t have any big expectations for this series. I maybe chuckled trice during this episode, which is way too little for a good comedy. This series really seems to try too hard, but all it does is waste a lot of energy on fanservice jokes that get boring really fast. I don’t even mind the bad animation, but there’s so much you can do with a concept of a GAR maid with a mask, and this series seems to choose the most predictable route through lots and lots of fanservice. I’m going to give this series one more chance, to see whether it’s perhaps like Muteki Kanbanmusume, though for now I won’t recommend this one.
To be honest, Kanokon wasn’t that bad. I expected scene after scene of pantyshots accompanied by electronica-bleepy music, but it turned out to be pleasant to watch.
Obviously, the fanservice was shallow, but the characters were likeable.
The music was mellow-ish, and managed to fit the scenes well, and the art and animation was good for this pilot.
The whole faux-sex-scene accompanied by the fusion thing was just plain stupid, but the episode did seem to have some semblance of plot and character that almost makes me want to watch again.
Better than To-Love-Ru, anyway, which has now concept of subtlety.
I predict the “LOL GONZO” for Blassreiter.
The pilot episode of Blassreiter was very good and interesting. Hopefully the future episodes are equally good, if not better.
what’s GAR ?
Dude, you need to lurk more.
http://lurkmore.com/wiki/GAR
Man, you constantly seem to bash these “harem” shows, and since I’ve never seen most of the ones you bash (and I don’t typically download shows unless they REALLY interest me), I can never tell if you’re bashing them because they’re GENUINELY BAD, or if it’s simply because you just don’t like the whole harem genre.
For someone who DOES enjoy a good harem show (Love Hina, Tenchi Muyo, Negima, DNA2, Clannad if it counts, etc.), does Kanokon seem like it might be entertaining? Bear in mind that I absolutely DO NOT MIND fanservice, and even KIND OF like it… and the stupider and less plausible a romantic comedy anime is, the more likely I am to genuinely enjoy it (cases in point: Midori Days / Midori no Hibi, Kamisama Kazoku, Onegai Teacher, Don’t Leave Me Alone Daisy – all shows I rank as some of the most entertaining and enjoyable anime of their kind!).
I ask this only because I myself have dabbled in anime and game reviews in the past, and one of the toughest things I had to struggle with was trying to determine a show’s target audience, and trying to imagine what that audience would think of the show — because in the end, the most effective review of anything is the one that considers the target audience, and tries to take their perspective into account.
-Tom
@tom
u should try it urself, watch the 1st episode n then decide whether it’d be worth watching. not everyone opinion’s the same. hell, psgel even bashed hayate, but that doesn’t stop half of the world from liking it.
My major problem withthese harem shows is that they all look like each other, and nearly all of them feel so uninspired, but then again you’re right about how I’m not exactly the target audience.
If you like a good harem-show, you might want to check out Kanokon, as I guess that that was the best of the three fanservice-shows this season.
psgels: I hope I didn’t offend, as I wasn’t trying to. Rereading my comment, and nahrub’s response, made me realize that it came across much more judgmental than I intended it to be. And nahrub is correct: This is an opinion blog, not necessary a review blog, so you can’t really be faulted for giving your opinion! (: It’s just a pet peeve of mine when reviewers say “this show sucks because it does X,” when there are a lot of people out there who genuinely like X! I’ve always been an advocate of writing reviews from the point of view of the target audience… but then, you’re more giving impressions than reviews, and I think we’d all be missing out if you felt you had to hold back on your impressions.
So yeah… don’t mind me. I’ve just been really stressed lately. (:
-Tom
The big problem a lot of people have with harems is the male lead, they are usually lacking in every department and fail to really have any development and send a rather negative message to its male audience, the few harems I have seen that feature strong harem male leads are Shuffle and Tenchi and only Tenchi allowed for all its character to have development, by the 3rd film I couldn’t even tell it was a harem.
It’d be great to see a show where all the girls start liking the guy once he becomes a strong likeable person, not really in looks but in personality, and that he not just stay a loser.
I’ve kinda found the opposite to be true, actually. I mean, the main characters in Love Hina and Clannad are extremely likeable, and even the main characters in, say, Happy Lesson and Sister Princess are fairly nice guys. Most harems have a genuinely likeable male character.
Maybe I have a different standard, though, I dunno. (:
-Tom
just watched blassreiter *sigh*. uberused of cgi. they use it too much that it made the animation less fluent. it reminded me of dragonaut. pity. no comment plot-wise, too early to tell if it’s good or not. n the whole bike n transform thingy, a bit like kamen rider imo.
Seen Kanokon and Blassreiter. Both were alright I suppose. To-LOVE-Ru…ugh…Denizen was right. No subtlety whatsoever. Kanokon actually made me chuckle a bit. And I’m giving Blassreiter and Tower of Druaga a chance because of the run of good anime I’ve been watching that GONZO have produced (Basilisk, Gankutsuou).
I like fanservice in animes as long as the storyline is decent, which is why I like Kanokon so far. The storyline isn’t terrible like in To-Love-Ru. The only problem I have is that the main guy looks like he’s freakin 7 years old.
i have a brand new anime or manga concept featuring a normal 31 year old workaholic guy named Adam Manson one day while returning home from work at the office he sees a falling star and he makes a wish to have a girlfriend later he wakes up and he finds a goddess named Evangelina is sharing his bed.
we see that Evangelina has red hair brown eyes and light white skin she is quite statuesque and athletic she has big breasts and a big ass.
we learn that Evangelina came down from heaven and she is a goddess of love and goodness.