Yay! I got my first 10000 viewers in! It does make me feel small a bit, after hearing that the guys of Kono-Sono managed to get 100000 in about the same time. Anyway, here’s another round of new anime. All these three titles didn’t really impress me when I firstly saw them. For some, my suspicions were right. But others turned out to be pretty decent.
NANA
The art looks great. It really overflows of elegance. Still, I don’t think I’ll continue watching this, as apart from the art, there isn’t really anything that really gets me interested in continuing this series. The dialogue is nice, the creators put some decent music in this, but none of these elements make me want to watch another episode, despite some of the original elements that were put in. After all, how many times do you encounter a show in which two characters have the same front name? In real life, it does happen (I know that from first experience, in a kindof extreme way). I’m also finding it a bit too confidential that both main characters just “happen” to meet again, after their train trip. I mean, Tokyo is a kindof big city (how many million residents did it have again? I already get lost if I run into a town with only ten thousand of them).
Zegapain
Ugh… this probably is the worst anime of the new series. Okay, it has some flashy graphics, nice CG. But the story’s horrible. Reasons? Who needs reasons! Everything seems just too coincidental and convienient for our main character and the poor thing is, this anime doesn’t even realize it. This also isn’t one of these series that’s so bad that it actually becomes funny. This is just plain bad.
Air Gear
I was a bit reluctant to see this. After all, it looked so much like a typical shounen series. And yes, it is a shounen series. But it certainly has some good points. The music, for example, gives this anime a very nice style. The humour works good, the different characters are certainly very interesting to see (I especially loved the main character’s wide variety of sisters), and the actions of the main character actually make some sense. Well, at least if you compare them to your average shounen-show. Overall, I had a nice time watching this, but there is a problem with this show. Each single element could have been executed better. And it wouldn’t have been so hard to do this. This is mostly noticable with the choreography. Okay, there are some nice stunts, but I can’t believe any of the great speeds that are achieved. Right now, it seems that everyone just drives at a measly speed of 20 kilometres per hour. But it’s not only the choreography. The music, although it fitted the theme greatly and certainly brought a good mood to the show, lacked a bit. At times, the character art looked a bit inconsistend and foggy. I think I’ll keep watching this for a couple of more episodes before I draw my final verdict.
I love Nana! The manga has really been adapated well in this first episode, so I can’t wait for more. It does start with a few coincidences, but after that it becomes really one of the best slice of life stories I’ve ever read. Of course, that’s just my taste. I thought Ueki was cringeworthy.
I have yet to see Air Gear, but I found Zegapain hilarious. Everything, as you pointed out, just seemed to senselessly happen, and the cg looked quite stupid at times. Still, I’ll watch more to see how it leads on.
Heh, it might be my taste as well. After all, this comes from a guy who actually enjoys shows like Ginga Densetsu Weed. ^^;;
I might give Zegapain another small chance, maybe it´ll grow on me. ^^;