I don’t do summaries for two reasons. First, because they can never do justice to the real thing that combines sound and moving pictures. Second, because summaries primarily communicate premise, and premise doesn’t matter all that much to me (unless it involves magical girls). I’m optimistic that anything can work with the right approach (especially if it involves magical girls).
Since a single episode isn’t enough to attain that “unifying vision” I always chase for, I try to focus on execution for these quick reviews. Anything that doesn’t screw up too badly gets into my four episode trial period, before facing the feared drop. Come back in three weeks and find out who passed!
Comet Lucifer
I have very high hopes for this series because this episode simply knew how to make its scenes work together.
For example, the scene with professional, cautious adults was immediately followed by the scene with reckless, plot-armored adventure kids. This created a strong contrast between the group of heroes and the (possible) villains. Another example is when the giant robot leapt up in the cavern. This standard, almost boring, movement felt more impressive because it combined the dominant feelings evoked by two earlier scenes. First, was the awe at the vastness of the cavern during the “glowing lake” and “glowing crystal” scenes. This provided a sense of scale to the robot’s airtime. Second, was the implied weight of the giant robots during their earlier brawl. The jump showed that this particular robot had enough power to defy its own inertia.
These things, plot-armored kids and overpowered mecha, are well-worn tropes. But damn, the episode sure sold them with an economy of scenes. If it can keep this up, I don’t care if it’s cliché enough to be predictable.
Concrete Revolutio
I’m a sucker for COLOR as much as I’m a sucker for magical girls, so this episode was SUPER EFFECTIVE against me. I almost want to just enjoy without thinking about it too much and going into detail.
But no.
The point of this episode was to introduce us to the series’ kitchen sink setting, and both art direction and writing delivered on that. Visually, the super-characters and their enemies looked different enough to suggest different styles (as if they’re from various manga/anime) but they’re also similar enough to maintain cohesion within the same series. For example, the magical girl’s character design has a lot of superfluous detail, while the car/horse mecha is sleek and gray. The writing drove home the variety by mixing the different genres of magical girl, mecha and tokusatsu at the same time.
Instead of presenting all this variety in a single burst, the show chose to slowly reveal details and escalate the power levels of those involved. Note, for example, how the magical girl’s spells start out basic and imply limitations (she couldn’t teleport things, but she could swap their locations), then they get stronger towards the end (she flew and transformed clouds). This pace maximized the moments of surprise and discovery which, other than feeling really good, ties into the “secret organization” theming.
The use of rainy and sunny weather to differentiate between two time periods is both a good and a bad sign. It’s good because the series knows how to be subtle and is willing to do it. But the series is also in danger of screwing up by being too subtle. The gap between the rainy and sunny scenes was too long and I’m sure a lot of viewers didn’t immediately catch the cue because they forgot the first rainy scene. There’s a similar danger in the dialogue about S alien plots that moves quickly. Observant viewers can infer the important details, but it’s possible that many others will miss it.
One Punch Man
Unfortunately, the show failed to reassure me that its concept isn’t a One Note Series. The running gag of ridiculous supervillain origins (and the fact that they’re talkative about it), fell flat after two retellings. It’s shallow parody that simply mirrors what it’s making fun of. Even the joke about the character winning fights too easily suffered from the same problem. We got the point after One Punch Man beat the titan, but the episode used the gag two more times after that.
There is some interesting contrast between One Punch Man’s past and dreams compared to the boring present. The former is gory and dangerous, while the latter puts the whole species at risk. This stupid kind of amorality might be a joke. But it’s so subtle it might as well not be there.
The only real jokes that worked for me were the quick visual ones with barely any dialogue. For example, Crablante’s lower half, chin kid’s soccer ball bouncing off his chin, One Punch Man fishing for exact change in his coin purse, and the titan slapping the guy on his shoulder. It’s sad that these got buried under wordy, shallow parody.
This series gets on my trial period out of respect for the hype. But my expectations are low.
The Asterisk War
This episode had great production value that was spent on being completely average in all aspects.
However, it’s a good sign that the series doesn’t waste time at laying down the cards of its clichés. It has confidence that the viewer will immediately suspend their disbelief with the superpower school and arena tournament tropes without asking too many questions. This will allow it to quickly get to the meat of its content, whatever that is.
If that content is superkid duels, then the series needs to step up the detail of its action scenes. Like most of the first episode’s content, these are just average. Instead, I’m banking on the fact that the sister’s bloody death and her half-erased record suggest that the school and arena tropes aren’t as sterile as they’re normally played. If the series stays bland during my trial period, it gets a drop.
The only impressive thing to note is that its fanservice served a point, by demonstrating the princess’ composure and the president’s perviness. Hooray for boob storytelling! But if future fanservice is more of the same, or if these traits aren’t important in the long run, then we’re back to fanservice that’s isolated from the rest of the series. (In this case, just get a doujin).
Heavy Object
Wow, this was a failure of exposition. The opening narration, combat footage and character dialogue about heavy objects were all redundant. The only cool things about heavy objects that I gathered from those were their orbit-ranged lasers and their ability to tank a nuke.
Overall, this episode accomplished little. For example, the fanservice scene with the tightening seatbelts was supposed to develop the engineer’s character. But after that, I still don’t have a read on him. Is he smart and inexperienced or an idiot who slacks off? What kind of relationship does he have with the pilot? Another example is the lack of background people in the shots. I had no idea what point that was supposed to make. Did it show that heavy object warfare isn’t manpower intensive? Or were the artists just lazy?
I’m in for the ride simply because the ending credits tease infantry operations in object battles, and I love that sort of thing. If the series doesn’t deliver that within the trial period, it’s an easy drop.
(This anime is about ur mom.)
Lance N’ Masques
This episode worked to idealize both knight and loli in opposite, contrasting ways. The knight’s purity is demonstrated through comedy. The fact that complex heroic action is mere reflex to him is absurd in a funny way (although I find it corny that he names it like a disease). The loli’s purity, on the other hand, is showed through drama. She has a sob story of isolation, yet doesn’t have a hint of social ineptitude or spoiled entitlement. It’s absurd in an unbelievable way, and comes dangerously close to contrivance.
I find it a bad sign that the first episode doesn’t impart a sense of direction for the series. I’m not sure if I should expect regular action scenes (he has to use that lance for something!), more cute-loli-doing-cute-loli-things, or rotating focus on each of the harem characters. Each of these possible things also doesn’t seem like something the series can do well, based on what it’s shown so far. The action is average, the loli activities are plain, and I don’t see how a horse can be a well-rounded character.
But since it wasn’t terrible, it gets the benefit of the doubt and stays in the trial period unless there’s an episode of cutesy filler.
K: Return of Kings
I didn’t realize that this was the third season and I can’t be assed to watch the whole thing from the start, so I’ll just go into this season blind and hope it works.
I’m not a fan of “flying people” action scenes. They usually oversimplify the action by making position not matter as much, so the visuals end up being fireworks with character close-ups. Even the nicest-looking fireworks get old after a while (that’s why we only have them once a year!). On top of that, the anti-seizure dimming sabotaged the effect they’re going for, so it didn’t look as vibrant as it could’ve been.
What caught my eye, and the main reason I’m willing to give this a shot, is the asymmetry between gangs. Red and blue had pre-battle rituals, while green had no such uniting factor. Blue was snappily dressed, but they also had the fanservice girl. Red looks rough, but they answer to an elegant, gothic loli. The contrast between these subcultures stimulate that pattern matching part in my head, and this series has four episodes of my attention until that no longer satisfies me or I don’t get hooked in some other way.
Young Black Jack
It needs to do something to make its operating scenes tense or suspenseful. As it is, there’s not much to be had from watching the protagonist wave his hands around. Initially, it did an okay job of explaining the stakes, such as giving an explicit deadline for the operation and the reasoning for that. But when a complication was solved, the episode failed to explain the consequences of the solution, since getting a vein from somewhere else is bound to have a side effect.
There’s some hint of the series going into period drama, like with the student demonstrations and the Vietnam war. But this episode just showed the event without going deep into it. Were the students really protesting about something so bad that lives were worth sacrificing? Or were these misguided ideals? I have no idea, and I hope the later episodes go into this.
Overall, I have the sneaking suspicion that this is a faithful adaptation of its source material that plans to exploit the nostalgia factor. I’m dropping this immediately if the next operation doesn’t improve on the problems of the first.
Coming Soon in Part Two
- Iron Blooded Orphans
- Star Mu
- Dance With Devils
- A Corpse is Buried Under Sakurako’s Feet
- Garo: Guren no Tsuki
- Hidan no Aria AA
- Subete ga F ni Naru: The Perfect Insider
- Taimadou Gakuen 35 Shiken Shoutai
