Some Quick First Impressions: Subete ga F ni Naru, Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid and Garo: Guren no Tsuki

Subete ga F ni Naru

Short Synopsis: A group of people decide to visit an enigmatic genius girl living on a isolated island.

It’s a little odd to give this episode such high potential when on examination not a lot happened in it. In fact, nothing really happened in it. It was just a series of conversations between our main characters. Still for the duration of this episode I was completely spellbound. Our characters all seem quite interesting as Souhei seems like a man you would never get bored talking to, Shiki comes across as otherworldly and mysterious and Moe has a distinctive observation skills that will no doubt come to play later. Though Moe’s rather obvious attempts to catch the romantic  attention of Souhei are a little detrimental to the atmosphere but she does have good chemistry with him. This looks to be perfect for the style of mystery coming as with just ordinary conversation they can grab your full attention easily. CGI cars excluded the animation looks great and this really looks to be a return to form for a noitamina block of fuji Tv which looked to be going for shows with a more teen demographic instead of mature shows such as this. Admittedly some of the dialogue bushes on being pretentious but this show does present itself as being truly adult in nature. Once the plot really gets moving I think this show could become a great piece of entertainment and food for those like their anime with some sophistication.

Potential: 90%

Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid

Short Synopsis: A girl is kidnapped and sent to an island where girls use other girls as weapons by “turning them on”

This was a fascinating watch for me in ways unintended of it’s design. For you see as Valkyrie drive attempted to catch my attention with action and fanservice so blatant that you would wonder why they simply didn’t just go all the way and make it a hentai, I was concerning myself with questions about its setting. For example who decided that the best way of transporting girls to this island would be to jet them though a force field on some kind of rocket vehicle that is destroyed on impact and leaves the girls drifting unconscious in the water? Isn’t that a massive waste of funds to have to destroy one of these likely expensive vehicles every time they want to send a girl to the island? Wouldn’t most of the girls drown before being beached on the shore? Are girls send in pairs of weapon and wielder and who decides which is which? Who was the idiot that decided the weapons need to be activated through sexual foreplay? Why is it that only women can activate these weapons? Meanwhile as I think these questions, Valkyrie drive responds with a “Who cares about that, instead look at these boobies!” to which I reply “I haven’t seen mammaries that grotesque since Clotho from God of War 2.” There really is something wrong with the proportions of these girls that makes them visually alien. This is an experience, to watch a show that’s trying it’s darnedest to erotically entice and yet fail to get the slightest reaction from me. It’s like I am playing Bayonetta all over again, except without the great gameplay. As for story it’s basically along the lines of what you would expect but I really do need to make a point that they are pushing for the fanservice on this one. At one point they brought in a opponent who had a BDSM slave for a weapon and I really didn’t want it to go there but it unfortunately did. One of our main characters is a silent protagonist which outside of RPGs really is an off putting to see in animation. This girl can talk but in situations where talking would help greatly she stays silent. I guess if you want something for other purposes this might be your thing but frankly there are better alternatives. Not recommended.

Potential: 0%

Garo: Guren no Tsuki

Short Synopsis: A armoured man fights horrific spirits that possess people.

Somethings not selling me of this. Maybe it’s the similarity to Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis as the artstyle of the characters are alike and it is the same studio or maybe it’s because this turned out to be a lot less seinien than I expected. In fact you know what this reminded me of? A Tokusatsu show sure enough the live action Garo tv show is indeed a Tokusatsu show. I can’t say much for Tokusatsu shows as I simply don’t have enough experience with them to form a concrete opinion but I believe I went into this show with the wrong expectations. Which could explain why I wasn’t too impressed with the show. The setting is nice but the feel of the story just feels half baked and far too simplistic. One particular thing I noted was that in the beginning the heroes only jumped in after the monsters had devoured all the people and the villain of the episode mainly became a villain because he was mocked but by one of the female heroes which really doesn’t make me want to root for them. The heroes as well don’t have much in lines of personality. I fear this show may become too formulaic and just doesn’t mesh well with me on a personal level. My recommendation is to just watch the episode yourself and decide if you would like to continue with it or not as I find this may be a case of a show just not being to my taste.

Potential: 30%