Softenni — First Impressions

Impressions,

For those like me wondering what soft tennis is, it’s apparently the same as regular tennis except it’s played with a soft rubber ball and is popular in East Asia. The show Softenni follows one school’s soft tennis team and their path to the championship (well… maybe not). This being from Xebec, I was pleasantly surprised by the (relatively) toned-down fanservice. Most of it occurs in Asuna’s (pink haired girl’s) fantasies and actually serves to parody the usual harem tropes which are thankfully avoided.

The style is reminiscent of Shaft, with interesting shifts in camera angle and random jokes such as a girl wearing costumes to practice, cows eating tennis balls, and girls hunting human-sized endangered salamanders for lunch. In general it’s a major improvement as far as Xebec is concerned, and I’m looking forward to see where they’ll go with it. Not planning to blog it though since everything comes out on Thursday and I’d rather do noitaminA.

Yumekui Merry Review — C-

Reviews,

Dreameater Merry: Shakugan no Shana III. Merry=Shana, Yumeji=Yuuji, Yui=Yoshida. About half the show consisted of battles in dreams, and the fighting was quite well done. Except most of the battles were two people talking about how they believed in themselves and explaining their attacks. I shouldn’t be surprised by this though, considering the track record of all shounen fighting shows ever created. The other half of the show consisted of people looking beyond the camera from one side of the screen and tilting their necks with the wind blowing through their hair. Sure, it’s a nice pose, but when it’s the only pose in your show there’s an issue.

With that said, I largely enjoyed Yumekui Merry overall. Sure, it doesn’t have the most original plot or the best dialogue, but its excellent execution helps to make up for that. The visuals and music are both fantastic, especially for the scenes in the dream world.

  • Plot / Script – 7 / 10 – Fairly predictable plot, dialogue is often overly sentimental and preachy.
  • Characters – 7 / 10 – Yumeji and Merry struck me poorly because their main pastime seems to looking cool and posing. The two main antagonists didn’t really do much except laugh evilly too.
  • Production – 9 / 10 – Gorgeous visuals and the music fits very well.
  • Overall – C-

Recommendations – Shakugan no Shana, Pandora Hearts

Dororon Enma-kun Meramera — First Impression

Impressions,

I have mixed feelings about this one. First of all, the humor is pretty good. You have to be in the right mood for it though, since it’s fast-paced and the jokes are probably funniest if you’re ten years old (I’m a child at heart). The scene of Harumi running away was especially hilarious. Perfect choice in music.

On the flip side, the main character, Enma, has to have one of the most annoying voices I’ve ever heard. He just doesn’t seem to articulate properly. I should point out that it’s the character, not the voice actor, who’s done a number of good roles.

Also, I can’t figure out what the show’s target audience is. They have humor suited for kids, and then they put in the sagging old lady, the enemy’s lance, and flipping people’s skirts. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised…

A Channel — First Impression

Impressions,

A Channel is next in the long line of shows about cute girls doing cute things at school, with its main differentiating feature being that the girls’ sexuality is more explicit. I don’t consider being about cute girls doing cute things to necessarily be a negative: I enjoyed Lucky Star, K-On, Manabi Straight, and Hyakko. But A Channel has a few issues.

  1. The art. The huge heads, eyes and shiny cheeks aren’t working too well in my opinion. The characters look more like monsters than cute girls.
  2. Bland characters. We have the airhead, the normal girl, the glasses girl, and the stalker. I doubt that any of them will develop beyond this mold. In K-On, Yui is an airhead too. But she can actually be really enthusiastic and do well when she tries. Her airheadedness is complemented by the rest of the cast, particularly her sister. The character in A Channel is is just an airhead for the sake of being an airhead, so that we can laugh at how dumb she is.
  3. It’s not funny. Maybe it’s just because I’ve seen the same jokes done before a million times. I was paying more attention to the show’s music than what people were saying. I’m not sure if it’s because the music didn’t fit well or because I was bored.

SKET Dance — First Impression

Impressions,

I never imagined I’d be saying this, but SKET Dance actually managed to make Ookami-san look good in comparison. The premise is basically the same— it follows a club that’s purpose is to do favors for people in the school. The first episode started with them doing a favor for a transfer student.

The characters are bland shounen stereotypes. The punchline of every joke is people YELLING REALLY LOUD, because that’s really funny, HAHAHAHA. I don’t think I managed to crack a smile the entire episode. The music is terrible and completely misplaced. I think it’s supposed to make the characters look cool or something but they just seem like idiots.

As for the “mystery”, it was way too obvious. But it gives our heroes a chance to prevent bullying, the true enemy for heroes of justice! Really, it’s these club members who should be the bullies’ targets. If I went to this school I would join in. The guy with the hat and goggles, and the guy who speaks through a laptop are just asking for it. And what in the world was with that guy’s goggles mode power where he overheated and came up with a plan? He’s putting on more airs than Victorique, except he’s a complete moron.  Obviously, I’m not planning to continue watching this.