Nyan Koi!
Because I’m allergic to cats, I can fully understand the horrors of the lead character, having to live inside a house with a cat. It must be near-impossible for him to try and keep things hair-free. Anyway, this episode wasn’t as bad as I expected: the characters are still pretty generic teenagers, but at least they’re not stereotypes and the production-values are pretty solid as well. The only really annoying characters were that lead guy’s characters. The romance is pretty shallow: guy who hates cats can understand cats and needs to help them, he falls in love with a girl who loves cats but can’t seem to understand them and so tortures them. Still, it’s a decent enough romance story, so why the heck are the creators planning to turn this into a harem, if we are to believe the OP and ED? My main problem with this series is the following though: cats are supposed to be awesome. Just look at Kuruneko or cheezburger. The cats in this series are very generic and uninteresting, and the humour mostly comes from the wittier-than-usual male lead.
OP: Very generic and formulaic J-Pop that I definitely do not like.
ED: A bit more bearable than the OP, but still generic and formulaic.
Potential: 40%
Asura Crying 2
I actually liked the first parts of this episode. The introducing monologue caught my interest, the OP was good, and it all made me interested in how this series would pan out. But yeah, then male lead came, opened a door and ran into his love interest while she was changing clothes. *headdesk* I mean, fanservice is one thing, but for this series to pull the biggest harem cliché within the first three minutes is just too much. The rest of the episode also reminded me why I originally dropped this series. It does have a few interesting-looking side-characters, but the main cast is so utterly generic. The male lead and that big-breasted girl especially are very badly acted, clichéd and one-dimensional. To me, this looks like nothing more than yet another whimsical teen-aged adventure that fails to stand out anywhere aside from perhaps a bunch of pretty good theme songs.
OP: Much better than the first, in which Angela tried to sound a bit too much like the ALI Project
ED: Nice enough, although a bit generic.
Potential: 10%
Queen’s Blade: Gyokuza wo Tsugumono
Well, so the Autumn Season has started, and let’s hope that with this series, we’ve got the worst to air first. From now on, I’m just going to put these quick first impressions, and re-post them as I watch more. Do warn me when this starts flooding RSS-feeds. In any case, this first episode of Queen’s Blade’s second season is at least not as abysmal as the way the first season started. At least there’s some narrative as it introduces the premise for this season. But yeah, that doesn’t excuse the fact that the characters are still walking around in the most impractical outfits imaginable. Wherever these women go, they have the chance to be tentacle-raped (no, seriously), and yet nobody seems to find this strange. It’s obvious that I’m not going to follow this series but at least it didn’t burn my eyes as much as the first episode of the first season did.
ED: Just a slide-show of the characters, but the music is decent. (in case you’re wondering: I got this idea from Cinammon Ass)
Potential: 0%
Impossible! Aren’t you going to blog it? I’m leaving forever! No, seriously, everyone knows what you think about such things. Why not just ignore them?
Nice idea about ED, though. Wasn’t there any OP?
Nope, there indeed was no OP.
And yeah, I could try to avoid the most obvious fanservice shows, but at the same time I’m having too much fun writing these entries. 😛
Psgels, you should write a first impression of Tamagotchi when it’s out. It has a lot of potential *ironic* 😀
psgels, I know you aren’t a fan of fanservice, but that is the point of the sexy outfits. This is one of those shows where the plot is just a framework for softcore porn. Sometimes I enjoy the eye candy, without expecting anything else from the show. For shows that try to come across as serious, and then have the women dress that way, your comments on the costumes make sense, but Queen’s Blade has never made any attempt to hide what it is, and the show would be a complete failure if the women [b]didn’t[/b] run around half naked.
Queen’s blade comes from a kind of game made with books each featuring a character. Chars are sexy female fighters. Wiki has a nice article about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_Blade
Chara come from the illustrations featured in the books. There are also action figures and trading cards! Queen’s blade can look fanservice (and it really is) but it respects its basic nature as a fighting game with sexy female chars! Therefore i’d not say it’s just your usual fanservice made to sell a couple of virtual breasts.
I completely agree with you. After watching the first episode of the first season, I was seriously thinking: wtf? Guess some people like these types of series. =/
Well, truly, bashing is fun.^^
Just a tip – instead of adding the new show underneath the one you already posted, you should put it above the previous anime so we know there’s something newer there.
To me, this looks like nothing more than yet another whimsical teen-aged adventure that fails to stand out anywhere aside from perhaps a bunch of pretty good theme songs.
I hate when people didn’t complete the first season, watch the second or third or fourth, have no idea what’s going on, and just bash it to hell. Asura Crying is like the best series ever, in terms of the story. You did the exact same thing to many other series. Please stop it. If you didn’t finish watching the first season, just say you didn’t and end your review.
I usually chose to check out these kinds of episodes in case I missed something. In the past I’ve been proven wrong a bunch of times and discovered a number of great series, so I’m not going to quit doing this.
As for Asura Crying being awesome: care to elaborate? If I’m turned off by this episode’s execution and generic teenaged characters, does the overall story still make up for it?
Watch asura crying season 1 from beginning to the end, you will understand. You can’t explain Shion, and I can’t explain this. I do remotely remember that the beginning were perhaps a bit boring, but it soon gets very interesting. With alot of different characters, different factions, some mystery/confusing stuff, it will really grow on you after a while.
What!? How could you not like Queen’s Blade!? It’s got stealth tentacle rape! GENIUS!