Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu
Short Synopsis: A girl wants a guy to make a visual novel with her.
From the writer of the Majikoi visual novel we have a story about making visual novels. That may cause some of you to shy away due to Majikoi’s anime adaption but as someone who has read the VN, the anime and visual novel are completely different. Still Majikoi is no masterpiece. One thing this show has going for it is its cast of characters. It’s nice that the main protagonist actually has character and he’s offset by pretty interesting supporting cast. I particularly liked the misappropriately titled “Bitch queen” who acted as a wise love guru though a phone call. There are those making comparisons to SNAFU but I feel that this anime will be a lot less serious due to the majikoi author being behind the writing. It’s certainly watchable and the cast makes it rather enjoyable so far. Also the anime referenced Sharin no Kuni which happens to be one of my favourite visual novels of all time. So for that I bumped up the potential score. I know that’s not professional but I don’t care. Props for the G-senjou no Maou reference too.
Potential: 65%
Bubuki Buranki
Short Synopsis: A kid attempts to find something connected to his past while being hunted.
Well that was certainly a surprise. The first ten minutes of this show were not what I expected in a good way. It acted as a good setup for the series and leaves me wanting to know more. The CGI is liked the best integration of 2D and 3D elements I have seen in awhile. While still not perfect this could be a step in integrating CGI into anime without it being jarring. On bad points, characterisation is a bit on the weak side. Especially with our main character who is the kind of whiny wuss we often see in these positions. The second half of the episode isn’t as strong as the first but I see potential in this. There are definite hints of hidden agenda’s and the villain looks quite interesting. A very strong start to what could be quite an interesting series.
Potential: 75%
Divine Gate
Short Synopsis: A teenager is all mopey because he has superpowers and a school wishes to scout him.
“Pitter, patter, the rain starts to drop. While the water may fill up the hole on the road, it will never fill up the hole of one’s heart.” Oh god, when your episode opens with poetic nonsense such as this it truly gets you ready for the events to come. It’s pretty clear this was written by someone who never quite outgrew the chuunibyou stage of his life and decided to use this anime to spread his complete genius. The result is just insipid when clunky exposition given by a psychopath randomly out of nowhere, a protagonist that thinks acting completely emo is an interesting character trait and bringing along an utterly ridiculous tragic backstory to boot, and of course that despite this attempting to wax philosophical metaphors it’s still knee deep in many of the tropes plaguing the genre. There’s a school setting because of course there is and the characters powers are boring to boot. Red guy uses fire, blue guy uses water and I am firmly willing to bet that the green girl has powers relating to plants. My interest ebbed away with every minute and I can be fairly certain on this. This will not be anything worthwhile.
Potential: 0%
I think you got something mixed up with Shoujo-tachi. Minato Soft is the visual novel company that made Majikoi and is currently making Shoujo-tachi, BUT the writer is Romeo Tanaka. Romeo Tanaka did NOT write Majikoi. He instead was the writer of Cross Channel, Yume Miru Kusuri and Rewrite.
Yep, you are right. And I even mentioned that this was from the cross channel writer in the winter preview but I think I forgot that detail when I was writing the impressions. Sometimes it’s hard to keep all the information straight.
Even though it was early teens emo, a kid reciting poetry in the rain was more entertaining than the rest of Divine Gate, which is simply boilerplate.