Hataraku Maou-Sama
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is an evil demon lord!
This was, by far, the biggest surprise I had in a long, long while when doing these first impressions. I didn’t expect anything from this at all. Just a random comedy with dull characters that may have had a few good jokes in it. There had been so many similar shows before, the entire premise of this show just felt redundant. What sets Hataraku Maou-sama apart though, is that the creators put in far more attention and effort than what you would expect. The animation from White Fox was actually quite gorgeous and expressive, but what impressed me the most were the characters. These guys are genuinely funny, and they have a ton of detail to them that set themselves apart. For example they start out speaking their own made-up language. The creators then commence to show all sorts of cultural differences that all in all are actually pretty cleverly done. This really is one of those genres that takes a well known and used genre, and pushes its boundaries. Finally!
ED: Simple, but actually quite catchy.
Potential: 90%
Devil Survivor 2 The Animation
Short Synopsis: Our lead character can summon beasts to fight for him.
I still haven’t forgotten the pain that was Persona 4, so perhaps because of that lingering on I didn’t enjoy this episode as much as I could have, but still: this was not as bad. The pacing was actually decent, and it didn’t try to rush through its dialogues. The fight scenes on their own are pretty cool looking, and it’s also good that this series cares for its continuity: whenever a bomb explodes in the whole city, it actually leaves its imprint: people die, take ages to get home and the whole city just comes to a stand-still. That, unfortunately are about the only positive things I can say about this episode. Bridge’s animation was decent, though nothing special for a first episode. It was decent, but did not stand out. One thing that really irked me though, was the main cast of characters, and how they acted through this episode. The two male leads don’t seem to be scared or surprised of anything, and they instantly notice the most insane details, like how an evil monster works, and one of them just manages to hijack a truck from out of nowhere. The main female is the complete opposite: scared, she doesn’t really do anything, and still she can summon really big monsters without even thinking of it. Hello people, balance! It’s not like they are interesting characters anyway!
OP: The lighting effects and poses are good, but the song here is rather boring.
ED: Dark J-rock, but not bad.
Potential: 70%
Majestic Prince
Short Synopsis: Our lead character pilots a big powerful mecha!
Let me tell you what Majestic Prince defines as “characterization”: every character has one quirk, and this quirk has to be repeated over and over. If you don’t to that, you simply try to look cool. Beyond that, this episode just did not make any sense. Here we have a bunch of commanders who are stupid enough to send out the worst possible pilots (not to mention a bunch of teenagers) to waste five very expensive mechas, despite that there are plenty of better alternatives. Yeah, it’s the usual bad stuff. The weird thing about this episode is that I’m not sure whether or not this series is in on the joke. At the end of the episode everyone was like “… did that just really happen?!”, like they too couldn’t believe their eyes there, with their distorted faces that are all over this episode.
Potential: 65%
Wait, why did you give it 65% potential if the synopsis was completely negative?
Curiosity, I guess :).
You must be new here.
Most mecha series, suffer from the “must be always teenagers” syndrome.
As a mecha fan, i just ignore this cliche for the sake of enjoying the plot.
The tropes are there, lets see how the other aspects develop, like the plot and the cahracters.
“At the end of the episode everyone was like “… did that just really happen?!”, like they too couldn’t believe their eyes there, with their distorted faces that are all over this episode.”
Distorted faces? UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE FREAKING MILLENNIUM!! Their noses are practically non-existent! Just a while triangle on them, no breathing holes or anything! Seriously, whatever happened to the Escaflowne days where everyone had slightly big but realistically proportioned and developed noses, jarring as they were?!
That’s Hirai Hirashi for you. Nose-less since the Escaflowne days.
Hataraku Maou-sama. I’ve read the manga adaptation and I had no bigger hopes for this but the execution was quite brilliant for a comedy series.
Devil Survivor. Lots of flaws but at the same time some cool things to watch as I’m a fan of the game. Gonna keep watching this until the end, no doubt.
Majestic Prince. I had no idea if I hate these characters or if I find them funny. Gonna follow this from a safe distance.
Daichi’s use of the truck irked me in this version. In the game, he took out that explody thing on Dubhe (the monster they fought at the end of the episode) , allowing you too go ahead and kill it. Over here he just looked dumb instead of like a man.
Devil Survivor 2 never had interesting characters to begin with so..But, to be fair, in the game itself, the protagonist is supposed to be all calm and cool where the others are panicky and dying left and right because of it. Thats what suppose to make him different (and you know, survive) though of course as the player you can make him a douche too, but almost nobody do that. Doesn’t make the story or characters any more interesting though. I think episode 2 or 3 will piss you off even more with a few things regarding their “shelter” ^__^;
“though of course as the player you can make him a douche too, but almost nobody do that”
I do ^-^
Yup I did it on my second run onwards too actually ^^ Its fun to do it since the routes this time around are a bit boring :/
I think you were supposed to have him act like a dick towards Keita – those conversation options were what levelled him, after all.
But yeah, it was just him and Fumi acting like nothing was wrong.
Dat hospital bill.
Oh yeah, for DS2 we’re already seeing a lot of situations make less sense because of details lost in adaptation and dropped for time constraints. 1 cour ftw. I wonder which if any characters they’ll try to develop, not like the game made them that interesting either.
The protagonists words about a test, the amount of macca he has, and the high level demon make me suspect this is supposed to be New Game+, which is actually spoilerish if you know how one of the routes works.
Persona 4 was set in a New Game+, I hope they don’t pull the same crap here.
Even if some of the conversation options in the game for the MC hinted at him ‘remembering’, it worked because we were playing him and we were confused. Tricks like this just don’t work in anime, I hope they pick the most logical choices :/
I like DeSu2’s. I liked them a lot more than I liked the DeSu cast. None of the interesting people should have appeared yet though (I haven’t seen the episode yet), and Io is boring at first, even if she receives a lot of development later on.
They know what to do because the phones contain heaps of tutorials; they can even buy demons on online auctions via those phones (that’s also how the other people who have demons will get them later). This might not be explained, as story consistency and world building are pfffffft for Seiji Kishi.
I agree psgels Hataraku Maou-sama exceeded my expectations! XD
DeSu2 – Im getting too many Gantz-vibes from this one. Its like they mixed those ideas together with Persona (mainly 3 – just look at the MC) and I just cant get over this…Also – how is the voice actor of the “police woman” called? I hear this voice in waaaaaay too many series (maoyuu, psycho-pass, zetsuen no tempest are just the recent ones).
Desu2: Gantz + Pokemon
@Gedata:Not doing much for my already low confidence regarding the show x,x;.
Some notes on the first episode of DeSu2 (and explaining some stuff):
*You might like this: there are only three characters younger than 18 (and they haven’t been introduced). There are also three characters over 25.
*There’s a very good reason the main character appears to know so much.
*Daichi was even more shaken up than the girl (although it didn’t seem so); originally the girl and Bunny stayed behind and fought that thing head-on instead of running for it.
*In the game, the characters were supposed to defeat the first demons they summoned, because those are real, actual demons that WILL kill anyone they can. But they listen to strength. I mention this because it might become an inconsistency later. (As things go, the demons, aside from lol what’s-he-doing-there Byakko were really, really weak.)
*The phones have several properties. Managing and summoning demons is one. Another is giving humans some level of strength and shielding, allowing them to go toe to toe with demons (this wasn’t explained in DeSu2 either, just in DeSu1). Any human with the Nicaea app is just as strong as a demon.
Still, they handled it pretty well.
Oh boy, here we have psgels’ hypocrisy at its finest. Not scared: sucks, scared: sucks too, do something: also sucks, do nothing: again sucks. Seriously, what do you want exactly?
Psgels actually is the less harsh, hardcore reviewer.
That´s why i like this blog.
i kept hearing fuck-uck-ke-ses in Hatarku Maou sama
Hataraku Maou-Sama is sort of cool.
Using the hackneyed demon lord canvas, not taking it seriously… The language was great fun too.
The animation of Majestic Prince was interesting with that mix of 2d and 3d, I kept seeing the show just for this at the start in spite of the too generic bad guys. The blindfolded commander looked like he knew how everything would end, so the decision of taking those five teenagers to pilot in the cutting edge mechas could seem more like the plan of a genius analyst rather than a joke (as if devised by Medaka’s brother). I don’t know the requirements for the adn matching with the robots, though I loved seeing those different maintenance teams for each robot.
About Devil Survivor 2, I’m not seeing it cause I want to play the game later :3
It only takes like 20-25 hours. You can finish it in time for the next episode 😀
As I’d said last night over on the shoutbox I enjoyed devil survivor, but I don’t want to play the game because it might detract from my enjoyment of the anime. I had already seen some of the game of persona 4 before watching the adaptation and that didn’t fare well.
Isn´t Majestic Prince, a humorous take on the mecha genre? Did you watched the show without subtitles again?
I can’t agree with what you mentioned about devil survivor 2 fully. The protagonists’ friend and the girl were both in complete panic throughout the episode’s action scenes. The hero himself often joined in, but did have some moments that were…unexpectedly competent.
I’ve played the original devil survivor and while it has little to do with this show, the hero there also was much more competent than his peers. In that game the game did provide very compelling reasons as to why this was the case. I know nothing about this installment, but I expect that our hero has more about him than meets the eye.