First Impressions – Page 18

First impression: Urara Meirochou

Published on January 10, 2017Leave a comment

A belly button exhibitionist girl raised in the wild by animals goes to the big city to become a fortune teller and meets other eccentric girls wanting to do the same.

Urara Meirochou: this is a fetish for someone

Gee, I wonder what the appeal of this series could be. Now obviously, this being a Manga Time Kirara adaptation this was always going to be a slice of moe/cute girls doing cute things with a bit of implied lesbianism/yuri thrown in, but still this gimmick got tired quickly. Oh, she’s raised by animals so she strips to show her belly as a sign of submission/apology. As Anime Feminist points out, it’s a bit dodgy especially since she’s supposed to be fifteen and especially when she does that to her friends.

Urara Meirochou: cute girls doing cute things

Apart from that, this is a standard slice of moe series, with each girl having her own character type: Chiya is the wild one, then there’s the shy one, the somewhat tsundere-esque one and the quietly component big sister type one. There’s a bit of sexual tension between that last one and Chiya, which may or may not go anywhere. The setting looks interesting if anything is done with it and I don’t mind this sort of series at all, if the blatant fanservice could be reigned in a bit.

First impression: Youjo Senki

Published on January 9, 20171 Comment

Blonde ten year old flying loli-wizard kills for the Reich.

Youjo Senki: niping for the Reich

Last season we had Izetta the Last Witch her home country from invasion by not-nazi Germany, this season we have ten year old second lieutenant Tanya Degurechaff defending not-quite Wilhelmine fantasy Germany from invasion from not-really France. Not quite World War I — there’s a Scandinavian front frex — but not quite World War II either. There are wizards flying around, but no planes so far, nor tanks either. Most of the fighting depicted fits the trenc warfare of the Great War better and the episode isn’t shy in showing the bloody consequences.

Youjo Senki: angel

We see Tanya mainly through the eyes of her subordinate, corporal Serebryakov who hero worships her. She sees Tanya as a symbol of strength, gruff and no nonsense, but who comes through for her soldiers when the chips are down. Early in the episode two of them disobey her orders and she punishes them by relieving them from duty and sending them somewhere safe. Or so she thinks.

Youjo Senki: devil

In reality Tanya sent them to their deaths, as on of the first targets of the not-French bombardment was the very bunker she had sent them to… There’s more to Tanya Degurechaff than meets the eye, but we only see her through other people’s eyes. Some, like corporal Serebryakov at first, see her as an Angel, the perfect hero to defend the fatherland, but it’s not just the Reich’s enemies that fear and loathe her.

Youjo Senki: height difference

it’s not surprising. Tanya doesn’t behave like a ten year old girl, is composed and serious way beyond her years, speaks with little emotional affection and only when it’s needed or to affirm her faith in God und Vaterland. Not to mention she’s more than a head shorter even than her corporal, who herself is at leat a head shorter than the other soldiers. It makes Tanya stand out and alien even if she wears the same uniform. (And how rare and great is it, to have the women in the same uniform as the men?)

First impressions: Masamune-kun no Revenge

Published on January 8, 2017Leave a comment

A boy sets out to prove that old margaret Atwood quote:

Masume-kun no Revenge: cruel rejection

Men are afraid that women will laugh at them.

Masume-kun no Revenge: physical attack

Women are afraid that men will kill them.

Masume-kun no Revenge: revenge is a dish served hottie

Also, men are such fragile creatures that one rejection as a child drives them to a decade long quest to become the perfect man in order for the girl who rejected them to fall in love with them, so they can reject her in turn and have their revenge.

First impressions: Minami Kamakura Koukou Joshi Jitensha-bu

Published on January 7, 20171 Comment

Girl gets introduced to the wonders of biking, starts doing it for fun. Like Long Riders, only with high school girls rather than college students. Sounds promising, a nicely relaxed show about cute girls riding bikes together.

who rides a bicycle for the first time to school

Okay, everything about this first scene annoyed me. First, if you haven’t biked since you were little, why would you make your first bike ride to school, on the first school day even? Why not practise first? Especially if you’re going to a new school? Second, how tiny are you that you can still use the same bike as when you were little? And how the hell did it stay this nice if you’ve never used it since? Especially since you just moved halfway through the country and still brought it with you.

Learning to brake

Nevermind having to learn how to brake; this girl doesn’t even know how to pedal. She’s very lucky to run into (literally) the glasses girl on the left, who is infinitely patient in helping her learn to bike when she has to go to school herself.

Google Maps would be handier

Almost eleven minutes in we actually get our first competent woman bicyclist. Who turns out to be looking for the same school as the two girls, depending on a crude map drawn by her friend, rather than something like Google Maps that people in 2017 would actually use. But at least we’ve now met our three protagonists, all of which are flaky one way or another. Hiromi is just plain stupid, glasses girl Tomoe too nice for her own good and unnamed adult cyclist is a somewhat unreliable teacher at their school and will in all likelihood be the advisor to the biking club, when that finally makes its appearance.

Let a man explain what to look for in bikes

So basically this first episode was all about the struggle to get to school on time if you’re not very bright and attempting to bike it for the first time, but at least we got an educational segment about how you can get a man to choose your bike parts for you.