Fate / zero — First Impression

Impressions, ,

I’m a Type Moon fanboy, so I thoroughly enjoyed this episode just for the sake of going back to the Fate / Stay Night universe. But this episode was pretty disappointing for a double length episode. The entire thing was just setup. This could be forgiven in a single episode, but for a double whammy? Get to the meat of the story already.

Much of the fun from the original Fate / Stay Night derived from not knowing what was going on, and figuring it out as we went along. But here it seems like they’ve revealed nearly everything up front. I’m not sure how that’s going to work out.

Kotomine and Emiya were two of the most intriguing characters in the VN, so having them in starring rolls will be nice. It’s a vast improvement over Shirou, to say the least. Emiya’s wife doesn’t thrill me at the moment: I guess her main purpose is to die some tragic death. The Matou household is always exciting. And little Rin and Sakura are cute.

But what’s up with Waver, this kid from the magician’s association? Is he supposed to be a joke? He already seemed like he was going to be the first one to die, and then he went and summoned an orangutan?

The production is up to snuff for ufotable, and the music is great. The episode served to get me psyched for the rest of the show, even if it wasn’t that exciting. There was a sense of building tension just through the dialogue. I’ll probably be blogging this, depending on the second episode. As an aside, more anime need snow. Snow makes everything better. Just look at Haruhi.

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Hunter x Hunter — First Impression

Impressions,

This is a remake of an older series, and I haven’t watched the original. So I’m looking at it from a fresh perspective. Normally I wouldn’t bother watching this kind of shounen show, but Mira claimed it was awesome so I decided to give it a try.

And it was actually pretty good. The biggest reason I can’t stand shounen fighting shows like Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece is that the pacing is so slow. It’ll take multiple episodes to get through a single fight. And I’m already bored of the battle after the first five minutes. This episode stayed well clear of that problem: if anything, the pacing was too fast. This episode was filled with action and didn’t leave you time to catch your breath.

The characters seemed interesting enough, the animation and music were nicely done, and it managed to keep my attention. Generally this kind of show will lose my interest as it goes on, descending into long battles, adding more and more characters, and generating louder screams and newer powers. But for now, I’ll stick with Hunter x Hunter.

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Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai! — First Impression

Impressions,

This actually started out pretty well. I thought it was going to be your usual visual novel adaptation, but the fighting makes things much more interesting. It was a lot like Dog Days.

But, then again… it was a lot like Dog Days. Dog Days had a great first episode, with an adrenaline-filled battle just like this one. Then it proceeded to completely fall apart. I could easily see Majikoi doing the same thing. The battle was fun, but I doubt the inevitable school life segments will be quite as exhilarating.

This is especially true with characters like these. We haven’t actually met them yet, but they don’t seem too interesting (especially the females, for once the male lead doesn’t look bad). There’s very little to differentiate them at the moment. And they all smile way much. Why are they smiling while they fight? It’s creepy.

I’m especially not sold on the lead female. Our male lead seems to have a brain for once, so why would he fall in love with an idiot like her? Plus she’s his sister…? Why does no one else seem concerned about this? Based on the fact that the other girl called her “sister” too, I’m hoping they’re not actually related…

We should get a much better idea of what to expect after the second episode, so I’ll stick around at least for that. Oh, and I’m shipping archery girl.

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C³ : Cubed X Cursed X Curious — First Impression

Impressions,

That shot pretty much sums everything up.

A magical tsundere girlfriend arrives in Haruaki’s house. Her name is Fear, and she is a cube. Cue ten minutes of exposition. Fear eats cookies, has hair that looks suspiciously like a certain other character from two seasons ago, and doesn’t know how to interact with humans. Her love rival, Konoha, the childhood friend appears, and they get into a big fight.

Next, Fears gets embarrassed because people treat her nicely. She then proceeds to destroy the house. Haruaki and Konoha forgive her and everyone becomes best friends again.

*Gag* I liked Fear better when she was a box. Coupled with our worthless male protagonist, I’m not looking forward to this show. It’s filled with hilarious jokes, such as “you have no breasts! Shut up cow tits!” and gratuitous panty shots.

And am I supposed to feel bad for Fear when she’s feeling lonely? She’s been alone in the house for all of thirty seconds. And she met the guy she wants to stay with when? Half an hour ago? They’re acting like this is a tragedy.

Some aspects remind me of Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka though. If they can up the craziness significantly and forget about the main characters, this could be salvageable. Not that I think that’s likely.

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Dantalian no Shoka 12 — Huey Does Something!

Dantalian no Shoka,

What a pleasant surprise! This actually turned into a nice ending, although it was rushed. They could have easily used up an extra episode or two on this or the last episode, especially given how repetitive the later arcs became.

Huey is Awesome

At least when he does something besides sipping tea and standing by helplessly. Even I’ll admit it: he was pretty cool in this episode, what with getting shot, shooting the gun out of the Professor’s hand from a puddle of his own blood, and jumping out the window with Dalian. He even attempted to save the girl from the library and stop the plot to zombify London. But then Dantalian goes back to its own tricks, and…

Someone Else Saves the Day

I liked this plot device at first. It was something new, unexpected, and cynical. Huey and Dalian get caught up in all these adventures, but no matter what they do it’s all more or less useless. Things happen, and they have no control over it. But it did start to grate on my nerves after ten episodes of our heroes being useless.

In this episode the twist was really well done though. Since Huey was actually trying to stop the phantom book owner for once, it was actually a tense scene. The Professor is showing off his trucks full of zombification newspapers, and mentioning how his plan is now unstoppable. Then out of nowhere, Hal’s flamethrower bursts all the trucks into flames. I had the same face as Rasiel and the Professor when it happened:

So this anticlimax was effective, because:

  1. Our lead characters actually cared about what was happening, and were still powerless to stop it.
  2. The viewers actually (sort of) cared about the people who saved the day.

The lesson is that indifferent characters tend to make for indifferent viewers.

The conclusion didn’t resolve much of anything, which fits in perfectly with the show’s themes, but still managed to tie everything together and come to a good stopping point. They even managed to bring in the other biblio-princesses.

The Girl in the Library

Honestly, this whole subplot didn’t appeal to me. We have a childhood friend who’s trapped in a library, who Huey makes a promise too. This is what motivates Huey to this day, twenty years later. Boring.

Still, I did like the scene where Huey and Dalian were running away, and the two worlds merged. It was nicely done. Same with the scenes of Dalian and her alter ego’s past / present / future. I’m not going to speculate much, since endless Penguindrum speculation has reduced my enthusiasm. But I did notice what looks like Dalian with Joan d’ Arc, and a toga-clad Dalian opening Pandora’s box. So she’s pretty darn old.

I especially liked the scene where Huey and the Dalian in the library hold hands. Usually Huey is wearing his gloves, but here his hand is bare and stained with blood. The girl reaches out to Huey, then pulls back, but Huey grabs it.

Phantom Books

  • Book of Atonement — This is a nickname for the book of Leviticus. And I guess it’s fitting this episode should air a week before the Day of Atonement.
  • The Professor’s book — A note written by a fugitive who assassinated a president of the new world. Most likely the diary of John Wilkes Booth. It doesn’t seem like the whole thing is available online, unfortunately. I’m kind of puzzled as to why the Professor claimed Dalian would never have heard of it— it would have been pretty famous. Perhaps this is just because it’s more recent? It’s power was lame anyway— he could have used an actual gun just as easily.
  • Crastinus Dies Nunquam Sciat — This is the title on the spine of the book Huey takes from Dalian. This translates (very roughly, I don’t even know Latin) to “tomorrow is never known.” Given what Huey is saying at the time, the meaning seems clear. As far as I can tell this book is fictional— perhaps it is the story of Dalian herself.

Further Thoughts

  • Could this guardian be Dantalian? He has “all Men’s and Women’s faces”, and this face seems to fit that description.
  • I cracked up when they showed the Germans riding the zeppelin.
  • I love how everyone says the middle name but only for Huey. Still, a marked improvement over calling someone “Setsuna F. Seiei” out loud. *facepalm*

Oh, and I said I’d be late with this post. Sorry, I lied. Boring trip. Have some angry Rasiel and Dalian pictures as an apology. Their fight was pretty cute.

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