All posts by draggle

Level E Review — B+

Reviews,

After watching the first episode of Level E, I decided against blogging it because nothing much seemed to be happening and it wasn’t all that funny. Boy was I wrong. The entire first episode was simply a setup for the amazing twist the creators were preparing for episodes two and three. This just goes to show not to judge anything by its first episode.

The series is a collection of short stories centered around Baka-Ouji and other aliens living on the Earth. Prince Baka spends most of his time goofing off by playing elaborate pranks on random people, so most of the humor centers around this. The short stories have enough variety that it doesn’t get stale— we have a murder mystery, a power rangers parody, a romantic comedy, and intergalactic politics, all with twists which make the stories not quite what they seem.

My personal favorite part of this show was Kraft, the Prince’s retainer who is most affected by his pranks and is always trying to kill or oppose him, but ends up falling into his schemes anyway. He provides a “sanity” check on the prince, but in doing so has ended up becoming even more insane.

On the negative side, none of the story arcs are really on part with the first one. This is a comment more on how great the first arc was than on the others, which are still hilarious (particularly the final arc). I think the main reason is that after the viewers are aware of the prince’s true nature, it isn’t so easy to be fooled anymore.

  • Plot / Script – 9 / 10 – Great buildup and execution of the jokes.
  • Characters – 8 / 10 – Strong characters, but doesn’t focus too much on individuals due to the arc nature of the show.
  • Production – 8  / 10 – Consistent animation.
  • Overall – B+

Recommendations – Gintama, Oh! Edo Rocket, Galaxy Angel

Gintama’ — First Impression

Impressions,

I actually still haven’t finished the original Gintama… I stopped around episode 150. Somehow the last 30-50 episodes were losing their touch, and I just wasn’t finding it as funny anymore. Still, it’s a remarkable achievement to stay fresh and keep me entertained for over a hundred episodes, so I had to at least give this new season a second chance.

I wasn’t disappointed, and this first episode returned to the level of humor in the earlier episodes of the original show. The jokes have an impeccable sense of timing— just when you think think things can’t get any worse for Shinpachi, and it seems like something is finally going right for him, they pick the perfect moment to make everything go disastrously wrong and become worse than it seemed before. I’m still laughing about Shinpachi coming out of his room to hug Otae-san and her new husband.

Zurako janai, Katsurako da!

I’ll probably be watching this one but definitely not blogging it (too long, plus I won’t have much to say). Also, with these first episode preview posts, I’ll be skipping shows that are only two minutes long (Fireball Charming) or that it’s completely obvious I’ll hate (Toriko), although I like to make myself miserable so I’ll probably do a few of the latter category anyway.

Sengoku Otome: Momoiro Paradox — First Impression

Impressions,

Sengoku Otome is yet another show reenacting a historical era with the main players as girls in costumes. The main difference from other shows like it is that instead of being about the Three Kingdoms era the subject is the Sengoku period in Japan.

This episode was about what I’d expect from the premise— very little. It wasn’t bad, per se, nothing near the level of Oretach ni Tsubasa, just boring and unremarkable in every single way. The characters are bland. The best action sequence (which was just someone posing with a spear) happened in the first twenty seconds as an “exciting” preview, and of course was cut and pasted as is later in the episode too. The plot looks like it’ll be a collection quest. Dropped.

Oretachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai — First Impression

Impressions,

This was terrible even by the already low standards of perverted harem shows. The entire episode was basically a slide show, having a brief scene with every character and showing their name on the screen. Plus completely random and pointless fanservice, even worse than the usual tripping and gusts of wind. A  little kid walks up from out of nowhere and lifts up the waitress’s skirt. He complains that they aren’t striped and so he pulls them down. I don’t even know what to say. The only slightly redeeming point of the entire episode was how the main character treated the girl at the bar (see above picture).

I called it quits when the seven year old girl pulled up her skirt and started making dirty jokes, and fast-forwarded through the rest. A cursory glance revealed that the main character is actually a king in some fantasy realm complete with winged creatures. I don’t care though, I’m out for this one.

Tiger and Bunny — First Impression

Impressions,

Tiger and Bunny has a strange premise: superheroes competing in a reality TV show to become the “King of Heroes” and bring fame to their sponsors. Based on the first episode, it’s actually looking quite promising: characters which are certainly not your typical superheroes, intensive and well-animated action scenes, and a healthy dose of cynicism. At this point the closest thing I would compare it to is Starship Operators, although I don’t quite feel that Tiger and Bunny will reach the same level of seriousness.

The show seems to be building up a bunch of intrigue and exploring a bunch of different directions, so it’s hard to say where the main focus will be. But we have already have Tiger’s personal life (he’s definitely not going to keep that promise with his daughter), the relationships between the superheroes, the shake-ups in the corporate hierarchy and the station management, the ethical questions raised by vigilante justice and a “justice” system which values both capturing criminals and commercial time more than the lives of civilians, and the behind the scenes intrigue of Sky High’s backers colluding with criminals to win the competition. It definitely a lot of promising directions to explore, so this show is one to watch.