Some Quick First Impressions: Sparrow’s Hotel, Arata Kangatari and Mushibugyo

Sparrow’s Hotel

Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a hot hotel ninja clerk.
In a follow-up to Aku no Hana: this series has what I personally would call really ugly art. I mean, holy crap those proportions! Those eyes! Who the hell designed that?! This is not a flash series, but it definitely comes close to that. As for the actual content… it’s basically a show with “hot girl jokes”. The entire series revoles around this hotel clerk who apparently is really gute and strong and ditzy and whatnot. The creators tried to stuff as much cliches as possible into just her, with the rest of the cast acting as a straight man (or woman). The big problem is that the acting is utterly terrible. What should have looked cute just looks incredibly forced and awkward. This is worse than even Date A Live. At least that show had a purpose!
OP: Just as bad as this series.
Potential: 0%

Arata Kangatari

Short Synopsis: Our lead character wields a magical sword.
Arata Kangatari, for those of you who don’t know, is the product of the same author as Fushigi Yuugi. Fushigi Yuugi is a series that I gave about three episodes, before abandoning it, because the main female character was a total moron. After watching this episode, I am glad to see that there was no such moron here. There is a bit of stupidity and there is one particular female character who needs to get a clue, but it’s all within acceptable bounds. And it created actually a pretty impressive story around that, with two stories running at the same time: one at present day, and one in a past fantasy world. Please let this be a series with bishies that actually remains good. They’ve gotten rather a rather bad reputation lately.
ED: My dear vocalist: you’re trying waaaay too hard.
Potential: 80%

Mushibugyo

Short Synopsis: Our lead character fights evil bug monsters.
Mushibugyo is a typical shounen. We’ve got a young kid with strong powers who wants to be stronger and protect a girl with big boobs who gets kidnapped immediately in the first episode. There are over the top powers and big monsters who need to be defeated by swords. But does it have anything to keep me interested? Not really. It’s got a nice style, the soundtrack is good, but beyond that it just does not seem to have a lot of substance. This series seems to view its battles as its main use of entertainment… and they aren’t really that good. The characters don’t really try to move away from their cliches. The only character who even remotely impressed me only appeared in a flashback, and even that was just over the top as a copy-paste excuse for the male lead to be involved with the story. It’s good innocent fun, but I’m looking for something more than just that.
OP: Quite stylish, good song at the very least.
ED: Ballad that doesn’t really catch my interest
Potential: 40%

19 thoughts on “Some Quick First Impressions: Sparrow’s Hotel, Arata Kangatari and Mushibugyo

        1. well you pretty much ruined the entire anime because of what you said. thanks for ruining my experience.

          1. Bah, Arata was ruined before it started, I remember thinking the manga was okay at first but it quickly becomes a drawn out dime store shounen.
            Apparently the productions not too good in episode 1.


            I want ovas of Sakuragari since I saw the light and embraced it like Kiraly did =P

          2. Good Emma 😀

            Sakuragari is a bit too graphic to get an adaptation, and censoring it wouldn’t be a great option either… a lot of the angst depends on the details.

            I liked this episode of Arata. Dunno how it’ll turn out later (I don’t particularly trust Watase Yuu), but for now I’m down with it.

  1. Ah, sorry. I meant to delete all spoilers for Shingeki no Kyojin, but that also automatically blacklists people and I forgot. Could you try again?

    Apologies.

  2. I’m not sure if I am missing something regarding the OP of Mushibugyo. It felt like the singer wasn’t really singing, and wasn’t even rapping. It’s either some obscure form of vocals that I have no clue about, or he was just… talking because doing anything more would take effort.

    So… how did that song get chosen for the OP?

  3. It’s just nitpicking, but please don’t imply that Flash animations are inferior. Go look for some “amateur” Flash animations and you’ll see how it’s properly done. Of course, “professional” studios use Flash as a cheap alternative because they suck, not because Flash sucks.

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