First Impressions – Page 2

Hortensia Saga: hate bow guy already — First Impressions

Published on January 8, 2021Leave a comment

This is one of the dumbest fight scenes I’ve seen in anime. A bow is not a gun, son.

Hortensia Saga, which starts with a violent coup, had the misfortune to drop on the day of an actual real life coup attempt, as deranged Trumpists stormed the Capitol, egged on by the man himself. Course, in the anime, the coup was started by a werewolf murdering the king in front of his daughter, while the capital was overrun by actual monsters rather than elderly Mid Westerners prone to heart attacks. The chaos in both cases is the same, though in Hortensia Saga‘s case I blame the writers, as the whole coup makes even less sense than Donald’s failed putsch. You got a rebellious duke transforming in a werewolf and killing the king in front of his daughter. Fine. You got the duke’s soldiers attempting to storm and occupy the capital city. Understandable. Then dozens of monsters are also teleported in, as if the loyalists not have enough to deal with. Okay, so the rebels are evil, makes sense. The princess is rescued and taken to safety away from the capital. Which is what you would expect from this sort of story. A hidden princess leading the rebellion agains the tyrant that slew her father. But then, after the OP has kicked in, we get a recap of what we just saw and it turns out the rebels were driven away from the capital, with the younger brother of the princess crowned king.

Hortensia Saga: the crowning of Mariel's younger brother

Then there really is no reason why the princess should remain hidden, masquerading as a squire to Alfred, the son of the knight killed defending her, now is there? If things are safe enough her younger brother can be crowned king, doesn’t it make sense for her to return? This first episode never makes it clear why Mariel has to keep hiding as Marius, even as it skips ahead four years, with Marius and Alfred now teenagers. Mariel has to stay Marius because that’s what the plot says has to happen.

Hortensia Saga: Marius in trouble

It’s emblemic of the sloppiness of Hortensia Saga as a whole. This is the most generic of generic medievaloid battle fantasy. Based on the battles shown in this first episode, don’t expect any sort of realism or proper tactics, just red shirts being hacked down by the heroes or villains respectively. Every named character will have their own personal super weapon, like bow guy in the video above and they will all be ridiculous. I don’t like any of the character designs, it all looks far too flat and shiny and I got a sneaky suspicion Mariel/Marius won’t actually be the protagonist. Especially because she spents most of the episode being rescued. I’m not really interested in yet another medievaloid generic fantasy series that just takes its setting from every other anime fantasy. Therefore, unless things improve in the next two episodes I won’t bother with this. A disappointment.

(An aside: in Dutch, a hortensia is a type of plant, usually associated with retirement. This does not help me with taking this seriously.)

Maesetsu! — not meant to be funny — First Impressions

Published on October 15, 2020Leave a comment

Opening the first episode of your series with your protagonists doing an air band version of your opening song at the cultural festival is one thing. Following that up with the main protagonist doing a painfully impression of one anime character imitating another anime character imitating the automatic closing doors of the Tokyo Metro is quite another.

And then the rest of the episode is mostly spent chewing over this failure of a standup routine. The sheer audacity of Maesetsu! had me breathless. None of this was funny by the way, but then I don’t think it was meant to be. Maesetsu! — apparantly the Japanese name for warm up comedians at television shows and such — is about the lives of a group of friends trying to become standup comedians, but that doesn’t mean this is a comedy. Nevertheless, the comedic timing of this scene, if not the skit is impeccable. It’s clear that if this series wants to do comedy, it can. It just choses not to for now.

Deep diving into a joke that will never be more than chuckle worthy at best is a strange way to start a series. Almost as strange as starting it with a five minute digression in how to eat a chocolate cornet. There’s something very Lucky Starish about Maesetsu! indeed. Not only is the manga version drawn by Yoshimizu Kagami, Lucky Star‘s creator, but you may have also recognised the voice of the teacher at the end of the video. Yes, that’s Hirano Aya, Konata’s voice actress listening to a bad imitation of her character doing a bad imitation of another anime character doing an imitation of the automatic closing doors of the Tokyo Metro. Brilliant.

Another thing I liked about this first episode was that I felt like we were dropping in on an established group of friends. There weren’t the usual first episode scenes of characters introducing themselves to each other even though they’d been friends for years. As in the scene above, you get to know them through how they interact with each other. Again, not unlike how Lucky Star did back in the day. Red haired Mafuyu is the ideas woman; blue haired Fubuki tries to implement them. Here they are refining their routine. Mafuyu suggests Fubuki should pause momentarily before responding to her gag. Cue five long seconds of Fubuki doing exactly that. Still not funny, but again not meant to be.

Judging from the first episode this will be a talky series. The character designs are neat, slightly softer and rounder than we’ve gotten used to. But that’s about it for visual appeal. It’s mostly people talking to each other. If you need something to happen on the screen at the same time, this probably isn’t a series for you.

Jack in for adventure — First Impressions

Published on April 8, 2020Leave a comment

Why is this boy lifting up the skirt of the girl he just rescued from being buried in a garbage dump, to show his sister her hole?

Listeners: It Is! This hole is just like I saw in the books!

Because this amnesiac girl is a Player and he’s not looking at what the anime wants you to think he’s looking at. He’s looking at her output jack, something only Players have. It’s what controls the giant mecha they fight the Earless with, the shadow monsters that are slowly destroying the world. Echo Rec, our hero, is a bit of a Players fanboy so he’s …less than tactful when it comes to sharing his enthusiasm. But he knows his place. He’s just a lowly trash collecter in Liverchester, a run down town almost destroyed in battle ten years ago, now only surviving as the garbage dump for the rest of the world. No way somebody like him can have anything to do with Players. Even when they turn up unconscious and amnesiac at his workplace.

Listeners: Echo and Mu on their giant robot

Imagine my surprise when by the end of the episode, he was fighting the monsters! Though he spent most of the episode insisting he was happy where he was, at the end he rode into the sunset with the Player girl. Who is now called μ/Mu ~~because she’s a big Love Live fan~~ for the symbol on her neck chain. A bit predictable, but executed well. I like that Echo isn’t the usual hot headed idiot champing at the bit to go on an adventure. His hesitation and attempts of talking himself into in staying put rather than go on adventure when it’s thrown in his lap are relatable. I would like to have a pretty amnesiac girl take me on an adventure, but if push came to shove?

Listeners: plug into the amplifiers

Every other anime reviewer seems to compare this to Eureka Seven, mainly because the main writer for that series also worked on this one. But since I never got further than episode three, what it reminded me off instead was Megalo Box. Same slightly gritty feel, same sort of slum setting. And like that series protagonist, Echo here seems to be a person of colour? Or at least not quite looking like the usual anime protagonist. There’s also an obvious rock undertone to the show: Players plug into amplifiers, the Earless are defeated by bursts of loud noises, a lot of retro tech like vacuum tubes on display. And finally, do we need to mention the obvious sexual imagery of Mu plugging in Echo’s jack?

Not all that original, but if the quality of the series stays this high, I’ll take it.

Dog in a manger — First Impressions

Published on April 6, 2020Leave a comment

Gleipnir is beautiful trash:

As Bless tweeted, Gleipnir has great character designs even for minor characters, well animated and with a great physicality to its setting. You can almost feel the summer heat through the screen. If only it was in service to a better story. From the first episode it looks like Gleipnir is just another edgy death game story, with an extra helping of fanservice. Of the four girls with speaking parts this episode, we got pantyshots of three of them.

Gleipnir: xtreme furry

Kagaya Shuichi is the sort of protagonist who wants nothing more than to lead a normal life, self effacing to the point of being a doormat. Too bad he has recently gotten the dubious power of being able to transform into a monstreous dog like mascot figure, complete with zipper on his back. As a side effect his eye sight has become perfect, he’s super strong when in mascot form and his sense of smell has improved. A lot. It’s just that this means he can smell the dead tanuki laying at the side of the road even from within the class room. So he’s not too happy about his powers and he seems to punish himself for having them.

Gleipnir: nice smile

But one night it comes in handy when he notices a fire on the hills behind his hometown, goes to check it out and discovers a girl lying unconscious in the middle of it. He saves her, but his animal instincts (?) play up and he starts to sniff his panties before stopping himself. The next morning she tracks him down at school and blackmails him into coming home with her. It turns out she’s been looking for a monster like him for a long time. No sooner are they at her flat, when they’re attacked by a girl with the same powers as him. Who looks a bit like the protagonist from Killing Bites. The game is on…

Gleipnir: strip in front of the loser protagonist

Gleipnir was originally a manga. I read the first few chapters of that a couple of years ago and what bothered me then is bothering me with the anime adaptation too. I just can’t care about Shuichi. He’s a boring doormat with no personality who spents the entire episode being sad. Is it too much to ask if we could’ve gotten this series with Claire, the blackmailing girl he saves, as the protagonis? Because she’s awesome. Few people would be so mad as to push a boy off a school building just to see if he transforms into a monster. She’s driven, tough and doesn’t let anything get in the way of her goal. But Claire is not entirely free of anime bullshit. We get the old “let’s strip in front of him to see how little I think of him” routine and it’s as exploitative as it ever is. Guilt free fanservice because the protagonist couldn’t help it.

So. Technically excellent, but ultimately trash. A loser protagonist I’d rather not spent time with, but a good supporting cast and Claire is awesome. Will I keep watching?

Just casual slavery — Infinite Dendogram & Nekopara First Impressions

Published on January 19, 2020Leave a comment

This raises so many questions.

Infinite Dendogram: for admin reasons, tians have human-grade cognitive capabilities and personalities

“Tians” are Infinite Dendogram‘s “generic” (sic) term for NPCs, which for some reason are given human intelligence and personalities, which is, erm. If you kill a tian in the game, isn’t that murder? Do the tians know they are in a game? What happens once the game’s no longer profitable and the servers are turned off, wouldn’t that be genocide? It all seems ethically dodgy on a level that even your average amoral tech company would balk at.

All of this is ignored by the show of course in favour of a very low stakes not actually trapped in a videogame story, with yet another clueless newbie player gets to hang around in a fantasy world having adventures. The first two episodes have been alright, but I’ve read dozens of these sort of isekai or videogame stories and there’s nothing interesting going on. Only if you really like this sort of thing.

Meanwhile, in porny visual novel turned cutesy anime Nekopara it turns out cat girls are literal second class citizens:

Nekopara: Cats are not allowed to leave their houses unless their masters are with them.

So in the world of Nekopara cat girls (so far only girls) are real and look just like actual human women, just with tails and cute cat ears, but sometimes they act like real cats? And that’s enough to treat them as second class citizens? It’s all a bit squicky and unnecessary for a show that’s purely a pseudo-harem series about cute cat girls working in a bakery and having issues with bladder control. Japan eh?

Nekopara: Cat fight

As said, this is based on a porny visual novel, where you can buy the actual game on Steam but have to buy a separate plugin to get all the sexy bits. Which explains shots like this, slighty too on the nose, crotch shot of the most fan servicey cat girl. Though for the most part there isn’t all that much fan service and what there is is more implied than shown, no censor beams or other BD sales enhancing techniques used here. This is almost a cute cat girls doing cute things show, if not for the presence of their master. Not a very good show, but a fun one and one that’s much less creepy than its origins would suspect.