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.
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.
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 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?