Does anyone actually watch these five minute shows? This one was about an “elementary schooler” who looks like a grown man. He worries about his recorder test for his music class, gets mistaken for a child molester on the way to school and is arrested. Continue reading Recorder to Randsell — First Impression →

Xebec, keepin’ it classy, as always. This skirt was pulled off multiple times from the bodies of multiple people in one day.

The episode starts off with a girl, Madoka, staring at the ocean, saying “I hope we can be happy like this forever.” As soon as she says that, she sees a drowning boy, pulls her skirt down, and goes to rescue him. We never see the boy again. He exists only as an excuse for the girl to come to school in her swimsuit. Continue reading Rinne no Lagrange — First Impression →

This episode didn’t get off to the best start. We had a little girl strip to her undergarments and sleepwalk out the door of an airplane. Next, the OP includes three naked girls and another girl fondling some guy’s private parts. Then we accuse enemy commanders of being perverts, and watch a princess go skinny-dipping.

Fortunately, the fanservice mostly disappeared for the second half of the episode, which was a vast improvement. The battles look nice at least, although I still prefer the style of the original Last Exile.

But where are the male characters? This isn’t going to become K-On in the sky, I hope? The battles give some hope, but the politics at the moment are much too simplistic, and the character designs too childish.

The music for the opening fight sequence was downright obnoxious. And what rate does this planet rotate at? Those moons were drifting by at an unbelievable rate.

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The comparisons to Code Geass are obvious: the writers are the same, both stories take place in an occupied Japan, the protagonists join a resistance group, and more. But there’s one major difference, at least so far: the protagonists themselves. Lelouch was a badass from the get-go, when he ordered a squadron of soldiers to kill themselves. Guilty Crown’s hero is a whiner with a magic sword. And our female protagonist is a walking sex symbol (is it just me, or does her dress look familiar?).

The supporting characters are questionable as well. We have the sparkling bishounen, the neko-mimi comms girl, and the orgasmic mecha pilot. Then there are some random gangsters, the usual crew of classmates, and some nefarious villains. I’m hoping that as the ranks of the villains increase they will become a bit more morally ambiguous. The creators will need to make these characters grow for this show to succeed: right now they’re weak. It’s only the first episode though, so we’ll see.

Despite the weak characterization, I enjoyed the episode immensely. There’s plenty going on, and everything flows smoothly. The episode had a great sense of timing and pace. It goes slow when it needs to, such as the opening sequence with the singing. But it can speed by for action scenes as well.

And I will say, this episode was was gorgeous. If there’s one thing Production IG knows how to do right it’s animation. Some of the music was questionable, but whatever. I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes.

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There’s a lot to like, but a lot not to as well. First of all, the setting seems pretty cool. Political conspiracies, wars, and Napoleonic dress-up games. But we don’t have to reach too far back in our memories for another series Bones produced with a good setting. Furthermore, note that the purple haired transvestite’s Geass emits purple butterflies. What is it with Bones, noitaminA and butterflies? Recall that the first episode of No. 6 was pretty exciting and had a cool setting, but then they forgot about all that until the ending. I’m concerned that Bones will do the same thing once again, and focus on this purple haired kid instead of the setting.

UN-GO is also reminiscent of another Bones series with a detective duo. UN-GO does serve much better as a mystery than Gosick: it isn’t completely obvious from the get-go who the murderer is. And unlike Phi-Brain, where the puzzles require solutions that are impossible to find with the information given, UN-GO does a good job at information control. The viewer is able to solve the mystery with the information given, but it requires a bit of thought, and becomes increasingly clear as the sleuthing continues.

The biggest problems, though, are that I’m not sold on the characters and am also not entirely sure what’s going on. I think the latter problem will fade away as the series progresses, so I’m more worried about the characters. The pink haired kid, especially, seems annoying (in both forms). The lead female seems fairly useless. The two detectives look promising though.

As for blogging this, we’ll see how the next episode goes. I’m not too keen on blogging three series on Thursday, so I may not pick this one up depending on the second episode.

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