Cardfight Vanguard
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a wimp.
Now I’m sure of it: this is the season of awesome soundtracks. When even the silly shounen cardgame show has some excellent music, it really is a great season for the audio department. Anyway, this show is definitely completely silly with a ton of bad engrish, but for a kiddie show about card games, it’s not really that bad. I especially like how the creators managed to create the biggest wimp in existence as the lead character: it’s nearly hilarious to see how much this guy lacks a spine when he’s not in a card game. It was very pleasant to see those bullies just walk up to him and steal his best card with so much ease. It’s still ridiculously silly, though, full of bad acting (not to mention that school teachers actually use the cards of this game in their lectures). I have to give credit for some actual good monster designs (emphasis on monsters… the characters themselves look just stupid), but it’s still obviously a “buy our cardgames” show.
OP: Surprisingly good for a kiddie show. Very cheesy and hot blooded, though.
ED: This one’s just cheesy, though.
Potential: 10%
Gosick
Short Synopsis: Our lead character meets a genius detective in the form of a little girl.
Good lord… that hair. Heroman’s character designs look just tame in comparison. Who the hell found it a good idea to put such a ginormous horn on top of that detective? On a more serious note: this episode was really tedious to sit through. That hair guy had a lot to do with that, but even worse is the male lead. This is supposed to be an exciting show about detectives, so why is he so bland and whiny? This show seems to be heading the Bakemonogatari route with the “smart girl dumb guy” trope, but the girl here isn’t exactly smart: she’s just tsundere who has access to the script. In the example mystery of this episode (which was very lazily told, by the way), she never really evaluated all of the possibilities, she just stated a ridiculously far-fetched solution that nobody would have guessed. As for the positives: there were a few dark parts that hinted at something deeper than silly adventures (I guess it’s just a matter of patience to see that actually pay off) and the animation, courtesy of Bones is quite good. Especially on the female lead (for quite obvious reasons) and the backgrounds are also very imaginative.
OP: Boring J-rock.
ED: At least not bad, but neither really good ballad.
Potential: 60%
Wolverine
Short Synopsis: Our lead character is a bishie with a tragic love story.
Okay, so the big question: is Wolverine as bad as Iron Man? As a matter of fact actually… it isn’t. It’s still very outsourced, but this is nowhere near the mess that Iron Man was. It actually has come up with an interesting story here, in which Wolverine is chasing after some Japanese mafia that took away his girlfriend, compared to Iron Man’s… whatever the hell it was trying to do with its corny morals. The action scenes in this episode also felt better than any of the fights I’ve seen from Iron Man, and the creators actually managed to put down some convincing villains, and Logan himself also is far from the incompetent moron that Tony Stark was. The horrible distorted faces are also gone. The creators are really going for a tragic story here, and so far they seem to be doing a pretty good job, with an interesting atmosphere. It’s nothing great, though: there was quite a bit of hammy acting and the romance was definitely a bit cheesy and should have been fleshed out more, not to mention the transition between scenes is a bit messy, especially at the beginning of the episode. I’m glad that Madhouse actually got some competent people on this, though.
OP: Decent, but nothing special after watching it more than twice.
ED: This one is surprisingly good, though: both in the visuals and the music.
Potential: 70%
Awwww… I was really looking forward to Gosick. Well, I’ll still go look at both these episodes to make up my mind.
Can’t wait until the subs for Gosick are out!
As for the hairstyle of the detective: At least in the light novels there was a reason for him to wear his hair in such a ridiculous manner. Don’t know if they will bring it up in the anime as well (although it was quite an important sidenote, characterization-wise).
I honestly loved Gosick.
The lead is boring alone, but his interactions with Victorique are fun.
’bout Gosick. You said the mystery was far fetched and impossible to guess?
The moment the cause of death was said I figured out that closed room. It was obvious; a room which nobody entered and a gunshot to the eye. The room was opened with a gunshot in the keyhole.
“[…] she never really evaluated all of the possibilities, she just stated a ridiculously far-fetched solution […]”
Now, I haven’t seen the show yet, but this worries me. What’s the point of doing a Sherlock Holmes rip-off, if you’re not doing a Sherlock Holmes rip-off?
Gosick: Mycroft and Watson-kun
I think what was purportedly done to open the door was dumber than anything else about this show. That was quite a mystery you brought us, Inspector Hairdrill.
I think the main failing here is the character development, which apparently got into the amphetamines. It’s amusing that she tricks Watson-kun into coming to see her the next day, but after that everything else about the development of their relationship is inexplicable to me.
Then there’s the image of a foreigner, during the 1920s, wandering down to local law enforcement in order to pick a fight over priority when he was never anything more than a bystander. It’s definitely a “things happen because they’re funny” show.
The show might be entertaining if it avoids too much of the Roxanne junk. I was tempted to cut my losses when I saw glowing eyes and cult members.
“tsundere who has access to the script” lol. I heard somewhere that GOSICK was was a japanesized pronunciation for GHOST… that turned me off pretty quickly (though my facts are probably wrong…). Anyways, less motivation to watch it now, lol.
oleefy: well, you’re close. It’s basically a bastardization of the romanization of the katakana of Gothic. Which really was not the way that I’d describe this episode…
Love how all the comments talk about Gosick and neglect to even glance at Wolverine, heh.
I haven’t seen it yet, but the synopsis of Wolverine sounds like it would involve the Silver Samurai and Mariko. At the very least, it’s already more canonical than Iron Man ever was…
“In the example mystery of this episode (which was very lazily told, by the way), she never really evaluated all of the possibilities, she just stated a ridiculously far-fetched solution that nobody would have guessed.”
then i guess i’m nobody 🙂
It’s the first thing that came to my mind,in fact i was sure it wouldn’t be that because it seemed so obvious.
And I suck at solving mysteries
Now that I have watched the episode with subs I have to say that I really liked it.
The graphics were awesome, the voices fitting and the characters close to their originals.
But it did feel a bit rushed…. I don’t know is this sceduled for 12/13 or 24/26 episodes?
Judging from the OP scenes it seems like they plan to cover all six light novels but if they only have 12/13 episodes that would mean they only have 2 episodes per novel… which will definitely lead to a very rushed storytelling.
I mean, they did a pretty good job on this first episode but I did miss some of the in-betweeen scenes which made their whole partnership more plausible and fleshed out the characters a lot more.
Like this we just went from scene to scene while ignoring the slice of life parts an subtle characterzation the novel provided at this time.
But I think all in all they did a decent job with this episode and I’m really eager to watch more of it!
It was worth watching Gosick just to see Victorique roll around LOL it was damn cute
It seems the fun here will be the interaction of the 2 leads, not exactly the mystery
I hope it pays off when it gets going cause I was hoping for some Sherlock Holmes-y style mysterying this season from this since that’s what I’d heard a bit of talk about where she was like that and the male lead was going to be a bit of light Watson. Still can’t wait to see the episode for myself.
Wolverine’s already sounding far more exciting than Iron Man but I haven’t even seen a raw yet let alone a sub, guess it’s just going up.
Gosick is one of those light novels which use the detective and mystery trope more as a fandom-factor than really developing it.
It’s interesting to watch, because me and my best friend are getting into that topic due to our studies.
I think like most light novel adaptions Gosick will remain a tad incomplete because they will have to trim most of the character development in favour of actually finishing at least some of the plot. Bantorra tried to ship around that cliff, but they had to cram the second half of the light novels into only 4 episodes at the end…so it’s either that or actually skipping most of the characterization.
That is a problem concerning most light novels because…well in the end they are character-centered novels.
About Wolverine…even though the episode lacked a bit of tension, it was pretty cool to actually see a comic plot being used for the anime, even though they changed it a bit.
The characters were actually created around the early 80’s and it was pretty much the same plot. Okay, the fight with Shingen went a bit differently and he had Logan poisoned before the battle…but apart from that it’s pretty much the same as far as I remember.
Next episode sees the entrance of Yukio so I think we will also see Silver Samurai…and I actually wonder if they plan to adapt the whole first Tokyo-arc or if they will change it.
I’ve read some chapters of the GoSick manga (I already find the first chapter unbearable but I read on in hopes that it will be as interesting as it seemed later) but unfortunately its “mystery” and “characterizations” won’t get any improvement =_=
Kiddie mystery shows write better mysteries than this one.
But hhhmm… the ending of the case was different from the manga though… maybe BONES had done something to improve it but can’t help not using the first chapter of the manga for its introductory episode.
Alright, this made me hopeful again ^^
As for Wolverine, I’m happy to hear that it didn’t end up like IronMan. Yay!
I enjoyed Gosick, and considering i’m the sort of person who gets extremely annoyed by generic highschool set-ups and characters, I would consider it not that bad at all.
The main lead isn’t annoyingly bland – he doesn’t have generic friends or childhood sweethears, and his mandatory japanese nationality is actually used in the setting.
There wasn’t the mandatory “Introduction” where we have to see all the obvious and predictable events of a new school setting. Instead we’re thrown into the middle of someone’s life.
The setting was nicely made, the mystery was nicely interesting, and there’s a hint of something intriguing overall.
It’s not amazing. It does have hints of generic LN stuff, it’s slightly rushed and some things just ..happen. I think the show is trying to skip the exposition and get to the strength of the original material, so for now i’m interested.
I think your review is a bit too harsh, really, though I think it’s fair to say it’s not nearly as original as it could have been, and it does have the potential to bomb without the right treatment.
@totoum: ha, I felt the same way, rather than far-fetched, it actually seemed too obvious to be the answer. It had a nice Occam’s razor feel to it though, which is different from other mystery stories I’ve encountered.
Man, someone should call Little Kuriboh. He gonna have a field day about hair jokes with that guy in the second screenshot for Gosick!
Seeing an episode like this truly shows how freaking superb Umineko is. You should all finish reading the sound novels of that one 😛
“she just stated a ridiculously far-fetched solution that nobody would have guessed. ”
…I actually thought of her theory, and thought it was a bit obvious…I mean, she suddenly takes out a gun, shoots, and there’s a body. My first thought was that she had killed the old woman right there. It was only later that they mentioned that it was a closed room (Umineko loves ’em), and while I was trying to come up with some other theories, the girl had already confessed the truth about the murder. This show explained the crime and then the solution too quickly, leaving you no time to think on your own. Which is kinda, you know, the whole fun of a mystery series.
Wolverine…wasn’t terrible? Awesome. It’s funny how my most least anticipated Marvel anime adaption turned out to be the most promising one yet.
^^@Uminekofan
Well, they haven’t actually finished the mystery yet. They still don’t know “why” she killed the fortuneteller as she said, they don’t know the motive. So this it’s leading into a much larger mystery.
^Yhea, the why dunnit is still missing. Still, the how dunnit was explained too quickly for my taste, just saying.
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/7320/evermoregosick01mp4sd84.jpg
“she’s just tsundere who has access to the script.”
hahha, awesome line!
@Azule: It’s a contrived solution. What makes the characters think the proposed solution is the only one? There are several other ones that are more apparent. For example: before any gunshot was heard, the fortune teller opened the door for someone. That someone then shot her, took the key from inside (or however the door’s lock mechanism works) and locked the door. It’s just poor detective work; the detective chose her solution because it was the most romantic.
Not only is it an overly-romantic solution, there are also several problems with it. For example, how could the Arabian maid guarantee the fortune teller won’t make a sound when she moved to the door? If she made a sound, people near the door would know she is alive, foiling the plan.
By the way, if we’re going for ‘romantic’, the next logical step is to deduce the maid and the fortune teller’s daughter were cooperating.
In the novel, though, it was pretty clear that that was a simple mini-mystery that Victorica doesn’t seem to consider worth thinking about. That’s why they went over it so lightly. The plot doesn’t start until they get on the ship they were invited onto, so let’s be patient…sure hope they don’t mess the main stuff up.
They cut most of the character development out. Even more than the manga did, but I’ll forgive the manga because it’s extra cute.
lol I’m definitely watching Cardfight! I can’t take it seriously but it’s pretty epic and funny. Yu-Gi-Oh had a script in which I couldn’t feel embarassed (the original one, not the stupid 4kids one ofc) but Cardfight…silly but awesome XD
-ibg
It’s not contrived at all. It is in fact the simplest solution possible (and also very predictable). One gunshot was fired and right at the keyhole. No other gunshot was ever heard in the house, otherwise presumably the two servants would have come running.
As other people have said, it does not bode well for a mystery series when the first mystery is quite obvious. Also, I’m surprised no one has remarked about the pacing. The creators basically threw you into the story – no buildup, no character development, just a scene change every 30 seconds. It was quite a waste of the excellent art and the good voice actors.
I am excited to watch Wolverine though. Hopefully it won’t go the way of Iron Man.
You know watching the first episode of wolverine, when he was in the plane I wondered how in the heck did he get past the metal detectors. and in the US on top of that… otherwise it was quite good for an opening ep
part of greatness of wolverine can be attributed to the fact that it is actually going to adapt comic book material.
The first arc in which we are currently is a direct adaptation of Frank Miller’s “Wolverine” comic book miniseries that started the whole Wolverine comic book back then and is still regarded as one of the best comic book works in history.
It seems that MADHOUSE is planning to adapt that comic book miniseries and then connect it to various other arcs from Wolverine comics(the first episode already introduced Madripoor and the OP hints at Omega Red, not to mention the ending scenes with what I guess is Sabertooth, not to mention that the miniseries storyline already has a very good lead in into a storyline about certain other villain)
Pretty decent watch. The mystery and the reveal was a bit of a letdown but the loli detective rolling around when she’s bored and the pointy-haired inspector makes up for that!
so I finally started watching Wolverine and… yeah, I guess no one noticed the subtle Canadian beer ad in there, huh? (I live in Canada, so I was super excited!!!) lol